GIFT    OF 
JANE  K.SATHER 


Fordham  University  Press  Series. 

MAKERS  OF  MODERN  MEDICINE.  Lives  of  the 
dozen  men  to  whom  nineteenth  century 
medical  science  owes  most.  Cloth,  octavo, 
362  pp.,  with  portrait  of  Pasteur.  Ford- 
ham  University  Press,  New  York,  1907. 
$2.00,  net. 

MAKERS  OF  ELECTRICITY.  Brother  Potamian 
and  Walsh,  in  press.  Issued  October, 
1908. 

OLD-TIME  MAKERS  OF  MEDICINE  in  prepara- 
tion, to  be  issued  March,  1909. 

MAKERS  OF  ASTRONOMY  to  be  .issued  Octo- 
ber, 1909. 

Other  Publications. 

THR  THIRTEENTH  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 
The  story  of  the  rise  of  the  universities 
and  of  the  origin  of  modern  art,  letters, 
science,  liberty  and  democracy  in  a  sin- 
gle century.  Cloth,  octavo,  450  pp. ,  fifteen 
illustrations.  Catholic  Summer  School 
Press,  N.  Y.,  1907.  $2.50,  net. 

CATHOLIC  CHURCHMEN  IN  SCIENCE.  Lives  of 
seven  founders  in  physical  science  who 
were  Churchmen.  Cloth,  gilt  top,  with 
portraits.  The  Dolphin  Press,  Philadel- 
phia, 1906.  $1.00,  net. 

CATHOLIC  CHURCHMEN  IN  SCIENCE,  second 
series,  containing  the  lives  of  Albertus 
Magnus,  Roger  Bacon,  St.  Thomas  Aqui- 
nas, Pope  John  XXI.,  Jesuit  Astronomers, 
Clerical  Pioneers  in  Electricity,  Father 
Piazzi,  and  Father  Wasmann,  S.  J.  (In 
preparation) . 

In  Collaboration. 

O'MALLEY  AND  WALSH.  Essays  on  Pastoral 
Medicine .  Longmans ,  Green  &  Co . ,  N .  Y . , 
1906.  $2.50,  net. 


The  Popes  and  Science 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE   PAPAL,  RELATIONS  TO 

SCIENCE   DURING  THE   MIDDLE  AGES 

AND  DOWN  TO  OUR  OWN  TIME 


BY 

James  J.  Walsh,  M.  D.,  Ph.  D.,  LL.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  MEDICINE  AND  OF  NERVOUS  DISEASES  AT  FORDHAJf 
UNIVERSITY  SCHOOL,  OF  MEDICINE  ;  PROFESSOR  OF  PHYSIOLOGICAL,  PSY- 
CHOLOGY AT  ST.  FRANCIS  XAVIER'S  AND  CATHEDRAL,  COLLEGES, 
NEW  YORK,  AND  LECTURER  ON    BIOLOGY  AT    THB 
CATHOLIC  SUMMER  SCHOOL  OF  AMERICA. 


FORDHAM  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

NEW  YORK 

1908 


REMIGIUS  IvAFORT, 

Censor  deputatus. 


3mpnmatur; 

•I*  JOHN  M.  FARLEY, 

Archiepiscopus  Neo  -  Eboracensis . 


COPYRIGHT,  1908. 

JAMES  J.  WAI.SH. 

All  rights  reserved. 


DEDICATION 

TO  POPE  PIUS  X. 

YOUR  HOLINESS  : 

It  is  with  very  great  pleasure  that  I  avail  myself 
of  the  permission  obtained  for  me  by  my  good  friend 
Archbishop  Farley,  of  New  York,  to  dedicate  this  volume 
to  Your  Holiness.  Four  years  ago,  when  I  had  the 
privilege  of  an  audience,  Your  Holiness  spoke  very 
earnestly  of  the  Apostolate  of  the  press  and  of  the 
lecture  platform.  The  words  impressed  me  profoundly 
and  have  often  recurred  to  my  mind.  They  led  me 
to  devote  much  of  my  time  during  these  years  to  the 
study  and  publication  of  the  records  of  the  Papal  rela- 
tions to  science  and  education.  I  am  now  very  glad  to 
be  able  to  lay  at  the  feet  of  Your  Holiness  a  volume 
which  sets  the  attitude  of  the  Popes  to  Science  in  an 
entirely  different  light  from  that  in  which  it  is  usually 
placed  by  English-speaking  historians  at  least.  I  am 
sorry  that  the  cause  of  the  Church  and  of  the  Popes  has 
not  fallen  to  better  hands.  I  willingly  assume  all  the 
responsibility  for  any  misstatements  that  may  have 
crept  into  the  treatment  for  the  first  time  of  so  large  a 
subject,  and  only  hope  that  the  truth,  which  I  have 
found  so  different  from  what  I  had  been  led  to  believe, 
may  redound  to  the  glory  of  Holy  Mother  Church  and 
the  universal  appreciation  of  the  beneficent  mission 
of  the  Vicar  of  Christ  upon  earth.  This  shall  not  be 
the  last  volume  of  this  kind,  God  willing,  and  I  hope 
always  to  remain, 

Your  Holiness'  humble  and  obedient  servant, 

JAMES  J.  WALSH. 
OUR  LADY'S  DAY, 

1908. 


"  Great  additions  have  of  late  been  made  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  past ;  the  long  conspiracy  against  the 
revelation  of  truth  has  gradually  given  way,  and  com- 
peting historians  all  over  the  civilized  world  have  been 
zealous  to  take  advantage  of  the  change.  The  printing 
of  archives  has  kept  pace  with  the  admission  of  en- 
quirers ;  and  the  total  mass  of  new  matter,  which  the 
last  half-century  has  accumulated,  amounts  to  many 
thousands  of  volumes.  In  view  of  changes  and  of  gains 
such  as  these,  it  has  become  impossible  for  the  histori- 
cal writer  of  the  present  age  to  trust  without  reserve 
even  to  the  most  respected  secondary  authorities.  The 
honest  student  finds  himself  continually  deserted,  re- 
tarded, misled  by  the  classics  of  historical  literature, 
and  has  to  hew  his  own  way  through  multitudinous 
transactions,  periodicals  and  official  publications  in  order 
to  reach  the  truth. 

"Ultimate  history  cannot  be  obtained  in  this  genera- 
tion ;  but,  so  far  as  documentary  evidence  is  at  com- 
mand, conventional  history  can  be  discarded,  and  the 
point  can  be  shown  that  has  been  reached  on  the  road 
from  one  to  the  other."  (Preface  of  Cambridge  Mod- 
ern History.) 


PREFACE. 

For  years,  as  a  student  and  physician,  I  listened  to 
remarks  from  teachers  and  professional  friends  as  to 
the  opposition  of  the  Popes  to  science,  until  finally, 
much  against  my  will,  I  came  to  believe  that  there  had 
been  many  Papal  documents  issued,  which  intentionally 
or  otherwise  hampered  the  progress  of  science.  Inter- 
est in  the  history  of  medicine  led  me  to  investigate  the 
subject  for  myself.  To  my  surprise,  I  found  that  the 
supposed  Papal  opposition  to  science  was  practically  all 
founded  on  an  exaggeration  of  the  significance  of  the 
Galileo  incident.  As  a  matter  of  history,  the  Popes 
were  as  liberal  patrons  of  science  as  of  art.  In  the 
Renaissance  period,  when  their  patronage  of  Raphael 
and  Michel  Angelo  and  other  great  artists  did  so  much 
for  art,  similar  relations  to  Columbus,  Eustachius,  and 
Caesalpinus,  and  later  to  Steno  and  Malpighi,  our  great- 
est medical  discoverers,  had  like  results  for  science.  The 
Papal  Medical  School  was  for  centuries  the  greatest 
medical  school  in  Europe,  and  its  professors  were  the 
most  distinguished  medical  scientists  of  the  time.  This 
is  a  perfectly  simple  bit  of  history  that  anyone  may  find 
for  himself  in  any  reliable  history  of  medicine.  The 
medical  schools  were  the  scientific  departments  of  the 
universities  practically  down  to  the  nineteenth  century. 
In  them  were  studied  botany,  zoology  and  the  biological 
sciences  generally,  chemistry,  physics,  mineralogy  and 
even  astronomy,  because  of  the  belief  that  the  stars  in- 
fluenced human  constitutions.  The  Popes  in  fostering 
medical  schools  (there  were  four  of  them  in  the  Papal 
dominions,  and  two  of  them,  Bologna  and  Rome,  were 
the  greatest  medical  schools  for  several  centuries)  were 
acting  as  wise  and  beneficent  patrons  of  science.  Many 
of  the  greatest  scientists  of  the  Middle  Ages  were 
clergymen.  Some  of  the  greatest  of  them  were  canon- 
ized as  saints.  Albertus  Magnus  and  Thomas  Aquinas 
are  typical  examples.  At  least  one  Pope  had  been  a 
distinguished  scientist  before  being  elected  to  the 
Papacy.  For  seven  centuries  the  Popes  selected  as 
their  physicians  the  greatest  medical  scientists  of  the 


vi  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

time,  and  the  list  of  Papal  physicians  is  the  worthiest 
series  of  names  connected  by  any  bond  in  the  history  of 
medicine,  far  surpassing  in  scientific  import  even  the 
roll  of  the  faculty  of  any  medical  school. 

In  a  word,  I  failed  to  find  any  trace  of  Papal  opposi- 
tion to  true  science  in  any  form.  On  the  contrary,  I 
found  abundant  evidence  of  their  having  been  just 
as  liberal  and  judicious  patrons  of  science  as  they  were 
of  art  and  education  in  all  forms.  I  found  also  that 
those  who  write  most  emphatically  about  Papal  opposi- 
tion to  science,  know  nothing  at  all  of  the  history 
of  science,  and  above  all  of  medicine  and  of  surgery, 
during  three  very  precious  centuries.  Because  they 
know  nothing  about  it  they  think  there  was  none,  and 
go  out  of  their  way  to  find  a  reason  for  its  absence, 
while  all  the  time  there  is  a  wondrous  series  of  chapters 
of  science  for  those  who  care  to  look  for  them.  This  is 
the  story  that  I  have  tried  to  tell  in  this  book. 

This  material  is,  I  think,  gathered  into  compact  form 
for  the  first  time.  No  one  knows  better  than  I  do  how 
many  defects  are  probably  in  the  volume.  What  I  have 
tried  to  do  is  to  present  a  large  subject  in  a  popular 
way,  and  at  the  same  time  with  such  references  to 
readily  available  authorities  as  would  make  the  collec- 
tion of  further  information  comparatively  easy.  I  am 
sorry  that  the  book  has  had  to  take  on  a  controversial 
tone.  No  one  feels  more  than  I  do  that  controversy 
seldom  advances  truth.  There  are  certain  false  notions, 
however,  which  have  the  prestige  of  prominent  names 
behind  them,  which  simply  must  be  flatly  contradicted. 
I  did  not  seek  the  controversy,  for  when  I  began  to 
publish  the  original  documents  in  the  subject  I  men- 
tioned no  names.  Controversy  was  forced  on  me,  but 
not  until  I  had  made  it  a  point  to  meet  and  spend  many 
pleasant  hours  with  the  writer  whose  statements  I  must 
impugn,  because  they  so  flagrantly  contradict  the  simple 
facts  of  medical  history. 


CONTENTS. 

INTRODUCTION. 

May  Catholics  dissect  ?  Supposed  prohibition  of  dissection.  Twenty 
medical  schools  in  Catholic  Europe.  Medieval  universities  and 
medical  education.  Allbutt  on  medicine  down  to  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. William  of  Salicet  and  Lanfranc,  the  great  medieval  surgeons. 
The  nearer  to  Rome  the  better  the  medical  school.  The  state  of 
medical  teaching  and  discovery.  The  relation  of  the  Popes  to  medi- 
cal progress.  Supposed  Papal  prohibitions.  Ignorance  of  medieval 
medicine  the  reason  for  misrepresentation.  The  Popes  did  not 
hamper  medicine  nor  any  other  science.  Galileo's  case  an  incident, 
not  the  index  of  a  policy.  The  Papal  Medical  School  the  greatest  in 
the  world.  The  Papal  Physicians  leaders  in  science.  The  Church 
did  for  science  as  much  as  for  art  and  literature.  History  a  con- 
spiracy against  the  truth.  (Cambridge  Modern  History.) 1 

THE  SUPPOSED  PAPAL   PROHIBITION   OF   DISSECTION. 

A  new  Catholic  medical  school  and  dissection.  Supposed  Papal 
prohibitions  of  anatomy  and  of  chemistry.  The  bull  of  Pope  Boni- 
face VIII.,  De  Sepulturis.  Reason  for  the  bull.  Supposed  misinter- 
pretation. Misuse  of  word  infallibility.  Some  history  of  dissection. 
Date  of  bull  important  in  history.  Mondino's  work.  Body-snatch- 
ing. Dissections  elsewhere.  How  Mondino  prepared  his  bodies  for 
dissection.  Guy  de  Chauliac  at  Bologna  sees  many  dissections. 
Mondino's  assistants,  Otto  and  Alessandra.  Papal  permissions  to 
dissect.  The  Church  granting  anatomical  privileges  where  civil 
authorities  refused.  How  the  tradition  of  this  Papal  prohibition 
originated.  M.  Daunou  as  an  authority.  Reply  of  Pope  Benedict 
XIV.  as  to  bull.  This  subject  a  type  of  certain  kinds  of  history.. 28 

THE  STORY  OF  ANATOMY  DOWN  TO  THE  RENAISSANCE. 

Presumed  failure  of  anatomy  during  the  Middle  Ages  a  myth. 
Famous  Law  of  Frederick  II.  Dissections  at  Salerno.  Taddeo  and 
anatomy.  Salicet  and  Lanfranc.  A  famous  medico -legal  autopsy. 

vii 


viii  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Mondino  in  the  history  of  anatomy.  Roth's  story  of  dissection.  Guy 
de  Chauliac's  experience  at  Bologna.  The  story  of  dissection  during 
the  fourteenth  century  without  a  break.  Continued  in  next  century. 
The  work  of  Berengar  of  Carpi,  Achillini,  Matthew  of  Gradi.  Path- 
ological anatomy  born  with  Benivieni.  Pres.  White's  attitude  to 
the  evidence  for  dissection  at  this  time 61 

THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  ANATOMY.—  VESALIUS. 

The  golden  age  of  anatomy  as  of  letters  and  art  in  Italy.  Not 
origin,  but  wonderful  development.  Great  predecessors  of  Raphael 
and  Michel  Angelo,  as  of  Vesalius  and  Columbus.  Legitimate  culmi- 
nation of  anatomical  development.  The  pre-Vesalians,  Mondino, 
Bertrucci,  Chauliac,  Achillini,  Berengar  and  Benivieni.  The  English 
students,  Linacre,  Caius,  Phreas.  Italy  the  Mecca  of  anatomical  in- 
vestigators. Harvey  and  Steno.  Graduate  work  in  Italy  then  as  in 
Germany  now.  Vesalius 's  career.  The  University  of  Louvain. 
Vesalius  in  Paris,  in  Italy.  The  Father  of  Modern  Anatomy.  Royal 
Physician  to  Charles  V.  Some  historical  misconstructions.  What 
the  Popes  did  for  anatomy  in  the  sixteenth  century 90 

THE  SUPPOSED  PAPAL  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY. 

False  impression  prevalent  just  as  in  anatomy.  Striking  similar- 
ity of  history -lie.  American  writers.  The  Papal  decree.  Its  pur- 
pose. The  gold -brick  industry.  Fines  to  be  distributed  to  the  poor. 
Pope  John's  bull ,  Super  Illius  specula.  Appeal  to  historians  of 
chemistry.  Chemistry  in  later  Middle  Ages.  Albertus  Magnus, 
Thomas  Aquinas,  Roger  Bacon,  Raymond  Lully,  Arnold  of  Villanova, 
the  two  Hollanduses,  Basil  Valentine,  Paracelsus  and  his  ecclesias- 
tical teachers.  Pope  John  XXII.  a  patron  of  science  and  of 
education 120 

A  PAPAL  PATRON  OF  EDUCATION  AND  OF  SCIENCE. 

Pope  John  XXII.  distinguished  for  his  administrative  abilities,  his 
learning  and  his  abstemiousness.  Avarice  and  the  Papal  revenues. 
Educational  foundations  from  Papal  revenues.  Modern  educators  and 
this  old-time  patron  of  education.  All  great  Popes  subject  of  slander. 
The  personality  of  Pope  John  XXII.  Pres.  White's  astonish- 
ing declarations  as  to  the  bull  Super  Illius  specula.  Pope  John 
XXII.  "a  kindly  and  rational  scholar."  His  bull  for  the  University 


CONTENTS 


IX 


of  Perugia.  Perugia  and  the  history  of  culture.  Standards  in  edu- 
cation. Seven  years  for  the  doctorate  in  medicine.  Foundation  of 
the  University  of  Cahors.  Modern  requirements.  Why  the  Pope 
favored  education 138 

THE  CHURCH  AND  SURGERY  DURING  THE  MIDDLE 

AGES. 

Mistaken  notions  as  to  medieval  surgery.  Supposed  Church  dis- 
couragement of  surgery.  Misinterpreted  ecclesiastical  documents 
once  more.  Gurlt  on  surgery  during  the  Middle  Ages.  Wonderful 
developments  of  surgery,  when  ignorantly  said  not  to  exist.  Allbutt 
and  Pagel  on  the  great  surgeons  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Salicet.  Lan- 
franc.  Surprising  anticipations  of  modern  surgery.  Mondeville. 
Surgical  common  sense.  Yperman.  Illustrations  of  surgical  instru- 
ments. Hydrophobia.  Chauliac  the  Father  of  Modern  Surgery. 
Place  in  surgery.  Chamberlain  of  the  Pope.  Technics  of  surgery. 
Chauliac 's  career.  Ardern,  the  English  surgeon.  His  works.  False 
impressions  with  regard  to  surgical  history.  Professional  jealousy 
not  ecclesiastical  persecution.  The  college  of  St.  C6me  and  its 
lessons.  False  traditions  as  to  the  Church  and  surgery  and  their 
meaning 167 

THE  POPES  AND  MEDICAL  EDUCATION  AND  THE  PAPAL 

MEDICAL   SCHOOL. 

Papal  Medical  School  at  Rome  since  1300.  Supported  by  revenues 
from  Popes  at  Avignon.  Previous  Papal  relations  to  medicine. 
Monte  Cassino  and  Salerno.  Pope  Sylvester  II.  and  medicine. 
Medical  schools  and  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  A  great  physician 
made  Pope.  The  Renaissance  and  the  re-established  Papal  Medical 
School.  Columbus  original  discoverer  and  practical  teacher.  At- 
tendance at  his  lessons.  His  book  dedicated  to  Pope.  Other  medical 
dedications  to  Popes.  Eustachius's  work.  Piccolomini  as  a  great 
teacher.  Caesalpinus  the  probable  discoverer  of  the  circulation  of 
the  blood.  Father  Kircher's  work  at  Rome.  Malpighi  the  Father 
of  Comparative  Anatomy.  Tozzi  the  best  teacher  of  his  time. 
Lancisi  as  a  founder  in  clinical  medicine.  On  Sudden  Death.  Mor- 
gagni's  place  as  an  adviser.  Bologna  in  the  Papal  dominions. 
Medical  schools  at  Ferrara  and  Perugia.  Protestant  traditions  with 
regard  to  the  Popes  and  medicine 222 


THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS. 

Belief  in  miracles  and  progress  in  medicine.  Prayer  and  healing. 
The  men  the  Popes  chose  as  their  medical  advisers.  Names  greater 
than  those  of  the  medical  faculty  of  any  university.  Guy  of  Mont- 
pelier,  Richard  the  Englishman,  Pope  John  XXI.,  Simon  Januensis 
and  the  first  medical  dictionary.  Arnold  of  Villanova.  Guy  de 
Chauliac.  Cecco  di  Ascolo.  Joannes  de  Tornamira.  Francis  of 
Siena.  Baverius  of  Imola.  John  de  Vigo.  Columbus.  Eustachius. 
Varolius.  Piccolomini.  Caesalpinus.  Malpighi.  Tozzi.  Lancisi. 
Morgagni.  Contributions  to  the  biological  sciences  from  Papal 
Physicians 199 

THE   FOUNDATION    OF   CITY   HOSPITALS. 

Pope  Innocent  III.,  the  Father  of  City  Hospitals.  Santo  Spirito 
at  Rome.  Virchow  on  the  effect  of  this  in  Germany.  French  hos- 
pitals and  the  Hotel  Dieu.  English  hospitals.  The  five  royal  hos- 
pitals. Virchow 's  tribute  to  Pope  Innocent  III.  Hospital  regulation 
Care  for  the  poor.  Longings  of  patients.  Religious  nurses  and 
modern  nursing.  Virchow 's  opinion.  Contemporaries  on  hospital 
accomplishment.  Magnificent  hospital  building.  Models  for  all 
future  time.  A  modern  achitect's  opinion.  Hospital  decoration. 
Siena  Hospital.  Hospital  abuses.  Problem  of  malingerers.  Leper 
hospitals.  The  eradication  of  leprosy.  Lesson  for  our  generation  as 
to  tuberculosis.  Special  hospitals  for  erysipelas.  Benefit  of  segre- 
gation. The  religious  dress  and  its  anticipation  of  aseptic  needs. 
Hospitals  ruined  when  taken  from  the  Church  and  the  religious.. 248 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EXPERIMENTAL  METHOD. 

The  doubting  mood  so  important  for  science  supposed  to  preclude 
faith.  Most  great  scientists  Catholics.  Francis  Bacon,  the  supposed 
Father  of  Inductive  Science.  Only  the  popular izer  of  the  ex- 
perimental method.  Bacon  and  Copernicus.  Gilbert  of  Colchester 
before  Bacon.  Friar  Bacon  on  the  experimental  method.  Peregrinns 
and  the  value  of  experiments.  Bacon's  four  grounds  of  human 
ignorance  Bacon's  great  teacher,  Albertus  Magnus,  and  the  ex- 
perimental method.  Christian  tradition  as  to  scientific  inquiry  as 
begun  by  Augustine.  Albert's  place  in  the  history  of  inductive  sci- 
ence. Interest  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  physical  science 281 


CONTENTS  xj 

CHURCHMEN  AND  PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL 
UNIVERSITIES. 

The  Popes  and  the  medieval  universities.  What  the  scholastic 
philosophers  did  for  science.  Scientific  teaching  at  the  early  uni- 
versities. "Foundations  of  knowledge  for  Galileo,  Harvey,  New- 
ton and  Darwin."  (Allbutt.)  Magnetics.  Philosopher's  stone  and 
the  transmutation  of  metals.  Constitution  of  matter.  Matter  and 
form.  Indestructibility  of  matter.  Conservation  of  energy.  Albertus 
Magnus  on  the  antipodes.  Humboldt's  appreciation  of  Albert.  Al- 
bert's scientific  accomplishments.  Astronomy,  botany,  geography 
and  biological  sciences.  Roger  Bacon  and  explosives  ;  achievements 
in  optics  and  astronomy.  Aquinas  and  chemistry.  The  relations 
of  these  men  to  the  Popes.  Bacon's  difficulties.  Medieval  accom- 
plishments in  applied  science.  Scientific  applications  in  medieval 
cities  (Kropotkin).  Decadence  in  science  after  Middle  Ages.  The 
place  of  the  reformation  so-called.  The  first  encyclopedia.  Vincent 
of  Beauvais  and  interest  in  his  work.  Thomas  of  Cantimprato  and 
Bartholoni£eus  Anglicus.  Craving  for  information  in  natural 
science 302 

THE   MEDIEVAL   UNIVERSITY   MAN    AND   SCIENCE. 

Dante  a  type  of  the  medieval  university  student.  His  knowledge 
a  proof  of  how  he  was  taught.  Dante  as  a  student  of  nature.  Rus- 
kin's  opinion.  Trobridge's  suggestions.  Dante's  early  education. 
Azariasand  Kropotkin  on  the  public  schools  of  Florence  and  Nurem- 
berg. Kuhns  on  Dante's  science.  Optics.  Astronomy.  Humboldt's 
praise  of  Dante's  scientific  knowledge.  Dante  the  observer,  phos- 
phorescence, flies,  bees  and  ants.  Dante  knew  more  science  than 
any  modern  poet.  His  contribution  to  the  science  of  education.. 340 

THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   MENTALLY   AFFLICTED. 

Disease  and  supernatural  agency.  Denial  of  disease.  Scientists 
and  spiritualism.  Reaction  in  recent  years.  Anticipations  in 
psychiatry.  Supposed  evolution  of  treatment  of  the  mentally  dis- 
eased. Medieval  care  of  the  insane.  Psychopathic  wards  in  hos- 
pitals. The  open  door  treatment.  After-care  of  the  insane.  The 
colony  system.  Religious  suggestion  and  cure— ancient  and  modern. 
Prayer  and  mental  disease.  Care  of  the  insane  at  Gheel.  Neglect 


xii  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

of  insane  not  exclusively  medieval.  Milder  measures  quite  modern. 
Spiritual  agencies  in  life.  Alfred  Russell  Wallace,  Sir  William 
Crookes,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Prof.  Charles  Richet,  Lombroso 363 

APPENDIX   I. 

OPPOSITION  TO  SCIENTIFIC  PROGRESS. 
The  Popes  as  patrons  of  scientific  education.  Swift  on  genius  and 
assinine  opposition.  Allston  on  truth  in  unusual  form.  "Nonsense" 
and  '  'absurd' '  on  scientists'  tongues.  Jordan  on  human  conservatism. 
Galileo's  letter  to  Kepler,  on  "logic"  and  science.  Huxley  on  Gal- 
ileo. De  Morgan  on  other  cases.  Dogmatism  and  folly.  Persecution 
of  scientists.  Harvey,  Vesalius,  Servetus,  Steno.  Not  confined  to 
old  times,  Tenner,  Auenbrugger,  Laennec,  Thomas  Young,  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  Semmelweiss.  Opposition  in  other  sciences.  Ohm. 
Young  men  and  discoveries.  Pasteur  and  rabies.  Our  universities 
and  economics.  Conservatism  still  active.  The  lesson 390 

APPENDIX  II. 
LATIN  TEXT  OF  PAPAL  BULLS  AND  DECREES. 

De  Sepulturis.    De  Crimine  Falsi.    Super  films  specula.    Bulls 
for  erection  of  Universities  of  Perugia  and  Cahors 413 

APPENDIX  III. 

Emperor  Frederick's  Law  Regulating  the  Practice  of   Medicine 
(1231) ..419 


INTRODUCTION. 

When,  some  years  ago,  the  announcement  of  the 
prospective  opening  o±  the  medical  school  at  Fordham 
University,  New  York  City,  was  made,  the  preliminary 
faculty  were  rather  astonished  to  find  that  a  number  of 
intelligent  physicians  expressed  surprise  that  there 
should  be  any  question  of  the  establishment  of  a  med- 
ical school  in  connection  with  a  Catholic  institution  of 
learning,  since,  as  they  understood,  the  Church  forbade 
the  practice  of  dissection,  and  in  general  was  distinctly 
unfavorable  to  the  development  of  medical  science. 
Most  of  us  had  already  known  of  the  false  persuasion 
existing  in  some  minds,  that  by  a  Papal  decree  the  prac- 
tice of  dissection  had  been  forbidden  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  but  it  was  hard  to  understand  how  men  should 
think,  in  this  day  of  general  information,  that  Catholics 
were  not  free  to  pursue  the  study  of  any  true  science, 
and  above  all  medical  science,  without  let  or  hindrance 
from  ecclesiastical  authorities.  In  a  word,  though  we 
live  in  what  we  are  pleased  to  call  an  enlightened  age 
with  the  schoolmaster  abroad  in  the  land,  as  is  so 
proudly  proclaimed,  we  encountered  the  most  childish 
simplicity  of  belief  in  a  number  of  old-time  prejudices 
as  to  the  position  of  the  Church  with  regard  to  the 
study  of  science. 

We  found  such  a  curious  state  of  positive  ignorance 
and  such  an  erroneous,  pretentious  knowledge  with  re- 
gard to  the  supposed  attitude  of  the  Church  to  medicine 
especially,  that  we  realized  that  the  first  thing  that  the 

(i) 


Ir^/r  **°&!et&<POP&$  AND   SCIENCE 

new  medical  department  would  have  to  do  would  be  to 
set  about  correcting  authoritatively  the  false  notions 
which  existed  with  regard  to  the  Popes  and  medical 
science.  Most  of  the  misinformation  in  this  matter  in 
American  minds,  we  soon  found,  had  its  origin  in  Dr. 
Andrew  D.  White's  volumes,  "On  the  History  of  the 
Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology  in  Christendom."  It 
is  impossible  for  anyone  to  read  Dr.  White's  chapter  on 
from  Miracles  to  Medicine  in  this  work  without  coming 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  constant  policy  of  the  Church 
for  all  the  centuries  down  practically  to  our  own  time 
was  to  prevent  the  progress  of  medicine  as  far  as  pos- 
sible. The  reason  for  this  policy,  presumably,  must  be 
taken  to  be  that  it  was  to  the  interest  of  the  ecclesias- 
tics to  have  people  apply  to  them  for  healing.  Sufferers 
were  to  look  to  miracles  rather  than  to  drugs  for  their 
relief  from  ailments  of  any  and  every  kind.  Prayers 
were  to  be  considered  as  much  more  efficacious  than 
powders,  and  Masses  much  more  likely  to  do  good  than 
the  most  careful  nursing.  These  ecclesiastical  offices 
had  to  be  paid  for.  Accordingly,  people  had  to  be  dis- 
couraged from  applying  to  physicians,  medical  schools 
were  kept  under  an  ecclesiastical  ban,  "dissection  was 
prohibited,"  anatomy  declared  "a  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  "chemistry  forbidden  under  the  severest  pen- 
alties," "the  medieval  miracles  of  healing  checked 
medical  science,"  "the  practice  of  surgery  was  rele- 
gated mainly  to  the  lowest  orders  of  practitioners  and 
confined  strictly  to  them,"  "as  the  grasp  of  theology 
upon  education  tightened,  medicine  declined, "  and  every 
possible  means  was  employed  to  keep  the  popular  mind 
in  subjection  to  the  clergy,  and  to  prevent  physicians 
from  getting  so  much  knowledge  as  would  enable  them 


INTRODUCTION'  3 

to  help  free  the  people  from  the  bondage  of  superstition, 
of  which  they  were  the  victims  and  the  slaves. 

We  do  not  think  that  we  exaggerate  the  impression 
likely  to  be  obtained  from  Dr.  White's  book  in  stating 
the  ordinarily  accepted  opinions  thus  baldly,  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  as  the  quotation  marks  are  intended  to 
show,  most  of  the  strongest  phrases  that  we  have  used 
are  Dr.  White's  own.  For  those  who  can  take  such 
statements  in  good  faith,  it  must  be  a  very  genuine  sur- 
prise to  learn  a  few  facts  from  the  history  of  medicine 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  Before  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  that  is,  before  the  religious  revolt  in 
Germany,  which  has  been  dignified  by  the  name  of  ref- 
ormation, altogether  some  twenty  medical  schools  were 
founded  in  various  parts  of  Europe.  Of  these,  the  best 
known  in  the  order  of  their  foundation  were  Salerno, 
Bologna,  Naples,  Montpelier,  Paris,  Padua  and  Pisa. 
Excellent  schools,  however,  were  established  also  at  Ox- 
ford, Rome,  Salamanca,  Orleans  and  Coimbra.  Even 
early  in  the  fourteenth  century  such  unimportant  towns 
as  Perugia,  Cahors  and  Lerida  had  medical  schools. 
These  schools  were  usually  established  in  connection 
with  the  universities.  It  was  realized  that  this  would 
make  the  teaching  of  medicine  more  serious  and  keep 
the  practical  side  of  medicine  from  obscuring  too  much 
the  scientific  and  cultural  aspects  of  the  medical  train- 
ing. In  modern  times  in  America  we  made  the  mistake 
of  having  our  medical  schools  independent  of  universi- 
ties, but  with  the  advance  in  education  and  culture  we 
have  come  to  imitate  the  custom  of  the  thirteenth  and 
the  fourteenth  century  in  this  regard. 

The  universities,  as  is  well  known,  were  the  outgrowth 
of  cathedral  schools.  Practically  all  those  in  authority 


4  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

in  them,  by  far  the  greater  number  of  teachers  and 
most  of  the  pupils,  were  of  the  clerical  order,  that  is, 
had  assumed  some  ecclesiastical  obligations  and  were 
considered  to  be  churchmen.  At  these  universities,  if 
we  can  trust  the  example  of  England  as  applicable  to 
the  Continent  also,  there  were,  according  to  trust- 
worthy, conservative  statistics,  more  students  in  attend- 
ance in  proportion  to  the  population  than  there  has  been 
at  any  period  since,  or  than  there  are  even  at  the  pres- 
ent time  in  the  twentieth  century  in  any  country  of  the 
civilized  world.  From  this  we  can  readily  appreciate 
the  enthusiastic  ardor  of  those  seeking  education.  Of 
these  large  numbers,  the  medical  schools  had  their  due 
proportion.1 

Of  course  it  will  be  said  at  once  that  though  there 
were  medical  schools  and  medical  professors  and  stu- 
dents, what  was  taught  and  studied  at  this  time  was  so 
far  distant  from  anything  like  practical  knowledge  of 
medicine,  that  it  does  not  tell  against  the  argument  that 
medical  education  was  practically  non-existent.  Some 
people  will  perhaps  harbor  the  thought,  if  they  do  not 
frankly  express  it,  that  very  probably  these  schools 
were  organized  under  ecclesiastical  authority,  only  in 
order  to  enable  the  Church  and  the  clergy  to  maintain 
their  control  of  medical  education  and  keep  the  people 
from  knowledge  that  might  prove  dangerous  to  Church 
authority.  They  were  thus  able  to  satisfy  some  of  men's 
cravings  for  information  in  these  matters,  and  yet  pre- 
vent them  from  making  such  advances  as  would  endan- 
ger the  Church's  policy  of  having  them  apply  for  pray- 
ers and  Masses  rather  than  for  more  physical  remedies, 

1  This  subject  of  the  attendance  at  the  universities  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  discussed. 
and  authorities  quoted,  in  my  book  "The  Thirteenth.  Greatest  of  Centuries,"  pub- 
lished by  the  Catholic  Summer  School  Press,  N.  Y. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

except  possibly  for  certain  minor  ailments.  We  do  not 
doubt  that  there  are  many  educated  people  who  would 
be  quite  satisfied  to  accept  this  as  a  complete  explana- 
tion of  the  situation  in  medical  education  at  the  medieval 
universities.  Those  who  have  read  Dr.  White's  "His- 
tory of  the  Warfare  of  Theology  with  Science "  and 
have  placed  any  faith  in  his  really  amusing  excursions 
into  a  realm  of 'which  apparently  he  knows  nothing— 
the  history  of  medicine— must  believe  something  like 
this.  For  them  a  little  glance  at  even  a  few  of  the  real- 
ities of  medical  teaching  in  the  thirteenth  century  will 
show  at  once  what  a  castle  of  the  imagination  they  have 
been  living  in. 

Only  those  who  are  thoroughly  and  completely  igno- 
rant of  the  real  status  of  medical  teaching  in  the  thir- 
teenth and  fourteenth  centuries  continue  to  hold  these 
absurd  opinions  as  to  the  nullity  of  medieval  medicine 
and  surgery.  The  reading  of  a  single  short  recent  con- 
tribution to  medical  history,  the  address  of  Professor 
Clifford  Allbutt,  Regius  Professor  of  Physic  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge,  England,  before  the  Congress  of 
Arts  and  Sciences  at  the  Exposition  held  in  St.  Louis  in 
1904,  "On  the  Historical  Relations  of  Medicine  and  Sur- 
gery down  to  the  Sixteenth  Century,"  would  suffice  to 
eradicate  completely  such  traditional  errors.  He  pointed 
out  some  surprising  anticipations  of  what  is  most  mod- 
ern in  medicine  and  surgery  in  the  teachings  of  William 
of  Salicet  and  his  pupil  Lanfranc,  Professors  of  Medi- 
cine and  Surgery  hi  the  Italian  Universities  and  in  Paris 
during  the  thirteenth  century.  As  these  two  professors 
were  the  most  distinguished  teachers  of  surgery  of  the 
period  and  the  acknowledged  leaders  of  thought  in  their 
time,  their  teaching  may  fairly  be  taken  as  representa- 


6  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE. 

tive  of  the  curricula  of  medieval  medical  schools.  Will- 
iam of  Salicet,  according  to  Professor  Allbutt,  taught 
that  dropsy  was  due  to  a  hardening  of  the  kidneys ; 
durities  renum  are  his  exact  words.  He  insisted  on  the 
danger  of  wounds  of  the  neck.  He  taught  the  suture 
of  divided  nerves  and  gave  explicit  directions  how  to 
find  the  severed  ends.  He  made  a  special  study  of  sup- 
purative  disease  of  the  hip  and  taught  many  practical 
things  with  regard  to  it.  He  taught,  though  this  is  a 
bit  of  knowledge  supposed  to  come  three  centuries  later 
into  medicine  and  history,  the  true  origin  of  chancre 
and  phagedena.  Most  surprising  of  all,  however,  re- 
mains. William  substituted  the  use  of  the  knife  for  the 
.abuse  of  the  cautery,  which  had  been  introduced  by  the 
Arabs  because  they  feared  hemorrhage,  and  he  insisted 
that  hemorrhage  could  be  controlled  by  proper  means 
without  searing  the  tissues,  and  that  the  wounds  made 
by  the  knife  healed  ever  so  much  more  kindly  and  with 
less  danger  to  the  patient.  In  the  matter  of  wound 
healing,  he  investigated  the  causes  of  the  failure  of 
healing  by  first  intention,  and  expressed  on  this  subject 
some  marvelous  ideas  that  are  supposed  to  be  of  late 
nineteenth  century  origin. 

While  it  is  usually  said  that  whatever  teaching  of 
science  was  done  at  medieval  universities,  was  so  en- 
tirely speculative  or  purely  theoretic  and  so  thoroughly 
impractical  as  not  to  be  of  any  serious  use  for  life  and 
its  problems,  the  utter  falsity  of  such  declarations  can 
be  seen  from  the  fact  that  William  of  Salicet  insisted  on 
teaching  medicine  by  clinical  methods,  always  discussed 
cases  with  his  students,  and  his  medical  and  surgical 
works  contain  many  case  histories.  This  is  just  what 
pretentiously  ignorant  historians  of  medical  education 


INTRODUCTION  J 

have  often  emphatically  declared  that  medieval  teach- 
ers did  not  do,  but  should  have  done,  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  It  is  not  surprising  then  to  find  that  William 
himself,  and  his  great  pupil  Lanfranc,  insisted  on  the 
utter  inadvisability  of  separating  medicine  and  surgery 
in  such  a  way  that  the  physician  would  not  have  the  op- 
portunity to  be  present  at  operations,  and  thus  gain 
more  definite  knowledge  about  the  actual  conditions  of 
various  organs  which  he  had  tried  to  investigate  from 
the  surface  of  the  body.  It  is  a  very  curious  coincidence 
that  both  the  Regius  Professors  of  Physic  in  England  at 
the  present  time,  our  own  Professor  Osier,  now  at  Ox- 
ford, as  well  as  his  colleague,  Professor  Allbutt,  of  Cam- 
bridge, have  within  the  last  five  years  emphasized  this 
same  idea  in  almost  the  very  words  which  were  used  by 
William  and  Lanfranc  nearly  seven  hundred  years  ago. 
Lanfranc  went  even  beyond  his  master  in  practical 
applications  of  important  scientific  principles  to  medi- 
cine and  surgery.  He  added  to  the  means  of  controlling 
hemorrhage.  In  arterial  hemorrhage  he  suggested  dig- 
ital compression  for  an  hour,  or  in  severe  cases  ligature. 
His  master  had  studied  wounds  of  the  neck.  Lanfranc 
has  a  magnificent  chapter  on  injuries  of  the  head,  which 
Professor  Allbutt  does  not  hesitate  to  call  one  of  the 
classics  of  surgery.  Lanfranc  was  thoroughly  appre- 
ciated by  his  contemporaries.  After  years  of  study  and 
teaching  in  Italy  he  was  invited  to  Paris,  where  he  be- 
came one  of  the  lights  of  that  great  university.  Both 
Salicet  and  Lanfranc  did  their  wonderful  work  in  scien- 
tific medicine  down  in  Italy  where  ecclesiastical  influ- 
ence was  strongest.  Italy  continued  to  be  for  the  next 
six  centuries  always  the  home  of  the  best  medical  schools 
in  the  world,  to  which  the  most  ardent  students  from 


8  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

all  over  the  continent  and  even  England  went  for  the 
sake  of  the  magnificent  opportunities  provided.  It  was 
literally  true,  in  spite  of  the  tradition  of  Church  opposi- 
tion to  medical  science,  that  the  nearer  to  Rome  the  uni- 
versity the  better  its  medical  school ;  and  as  we  shall 
see,  Rome  itself  had  the  best  medical  school  in  the  world 
for  two  centuries,  while  its  greatest  rival,  often  ahead 
of  it  in  scientific  achievement,  always  its  peer,  was  the 
medical  school  of  Bologna  in  the  Papal  States,  directly 
under  the  control  of  the  Popes  since  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century. 

Dr.  White  has  said  just  the  opposite  of  this  in  a  well- 
known  passage  of  his  book,  in  which  he  assures  his 
readers  that  "in  proportion  as  the  grasp  of  theology 
upon  education  tightened,  medicine  declined ;  and  in 
proportion  as  that  grasp  relaxed,  medicine  has  been  de- 
veloped." The  reason  for  such  a  statement  is  that  he 
knew  nothing  about  the  history  of  medicine  and  surgery 
in  these  medieval  centuries  and  thought  there  was  none. 
This  is  a  characteristic  example  of  his  mode  of  writing 
the  History  of  the  (Supposed)  Warfare  of  Theology  with 
Science  in  Christendom.  This  much  will  give  some  idea 
of  the  value  of  his  book  as  a  work  of  reference. 

After  knowing  something  of  these  wonderful  develop- 
ments of  medieval  medical  science,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
no  one  will  listen  hereafter  to  the  ignorant  assertions  of 
those  who  talk  of  the  suppression  of  medical  knowledge 
at  this  time.  William  of  Salicet  and  Lanfranc  were  both 
of  them  clerics,  that  is,  they  belonged  to  the  ecclesias- 
tical body  and  had  taken  minor  orders,  though  they  were 
not  priests,  as  priests  were  for  obvious  reasons  not  al- 
lowed to  do  surgical  operations,  it  being  as  repugnant 
to  human  feelings  in  the  Middle  Ages  as  it  is  now,  that 


INTRODUCTION  9 

the  messenger  of  Divine  Mercy  should  handle  the  knife 
and  spill  blood,  or  that  the  pastor  of  souls  should  come 
straight  from  the  operating  room  to  bring  consolation 
to  the  afflicted  and  the  dying. 

Much  more  might  be  said  about  the  wonderful  med- 
ical teaching  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The  men  who 
made  the  universities  what  they  have  continued  to  be 
down  to  the  present  time,  had  open  minds  for  any  great 
advances  that  might  come.  Accordingly,  when  the  his- 
tories of  anesthesia  tell  us  that  there  was  a  form  of 
anesthesia  introduced  during  the  thirteenth  century  by 
Ugo  da  Lucca,  and  that  even  some  method  of  inhalation 
was  employed  for  this  purpose,  it  will  be  a  surprise  only 
to  those  who  have  never  properly  realized  all  that  our 
educational  forefathers  of  the  early  university  days  suc- 
ceeded in  accomplishing. 

Down  at  Montpelier,  Gilbert  the  Englishman  taught 
that  small-pox  patients  should  be  treated  in  rooms  with 
red  hangings,  red  curtains  being  especially  advised  for 
the  doors  and  windows.  This  is  what  Finsen  re-discov- 
ered in  the  nineteenth  century,  and  for  it  was  given  the 
Nobel  prize  in  the  twentieth  century.  He  found  that 
small-pox  patients  suffered  much  less,  that  their  fever 
was  shorter,  and  that  the  after  effects  were  much  less 
marked  when  only  red  light  was  admitted  to  them.  One 
may  well  ask  what  drugs  did  they  employ,  and  perhaps 
conclude  that  because  they  knew  very  little  of  drugs, 
therefore  they  knew  little  of  medicine.  It  is  in  the  use 
of  drugs,  however,  that  medicine  has  always  been  at  its 
weakest,  and  we  scarcely  need  Oliver  Wendel  Holmes' s 
declaration,  that  if  all  the  drugs  men  used  up  to  his  time 
had  been  thrown  into  the  sea,  they  would  be  better 
rather  than  worse  off  for  it ;  nor  Professor  Osier's  many 


10  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

emphatic  protests  with  regard  to  our  ignorance  of  drugs, 
to  make  the  world  of  the  present  day  realize  that  a  gen- 
eration's use  of  them  as  a  test  would  tell  quite  as  se- 
verely against  the  eighteenth  or  the  nineteenth  century, 
as  against  the  thirteenth  or  the  fourteenth.  They  did 
use  opium,  however,  the  drug  having  been  introduced 
into  general  practice,  it  is  said,  by  a  distinguished  Papal 
physician,  Simon  Januensis.  Mandrake  was  employed, 
and  has  not  as  yet  gone  entirely  out  of  use.  Various 
herbal  decoctions  were  employed,  and  though  these  were 
used  entirely  on  empiric  grounds,  some  at  least  of  them 
have  continued  in  use  with  no  better  reason  for  their 
employment  during  most  of  the  centuries  since. 

The  relation  of  the  Popes  to  these  advances  in  medi- 
cine may  be  best  appreciated  from  the  interest  which 
they  took  in  the  hospitals.  It  was  only  in  hospitals  that 
cases  could  be  properly  studied,  and  the  medieval  hos- 
pitals were  conducted  with  very  nearly  the  same  rela- 
tions to  the  universities  of  that  time  as  those  that  exist 
at  the  present  day.  In  the  chapter  on  the  Foundation 
of  City  Hospitals  we  show  that  these  institutions  are  all, 
as  Virchow,  who  is  surely  an  authority  above  suspicion 
in  any  matter  relating  to  the  Popes  has  declared,  due  to 
one  great  Pope.  This  is  the  best  possible  demonstration 
of  supreme  humanitarian  interest  in  human  ills,  and 
their  treatment.  Innocent  III.,  as  we  shall  see,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  summoned  Guy  from 
Montpelier,  where  he  had  been  trained  in  the  care  of 
patients,  and  where  the  greatest  medical  school  of  the 
time  existed,  to  come  to  Rome  and  organize  the  Hospital 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  Papal  City,  which  was  to  be  a 
model  for  hospitals  of  the  same  kind  in  every  diocese 
throughout  the  Christian  world.  Literally  hundreds  of 


INTRODUCTION  H 

these  hospitals  were  founded  during  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury as  the  result  of  this  initiative.  Patients  were  not 
left  to  die,  with  only  the  hope  of  prayers  to  relieve  their 
sufferings,  but  they  were  cared  for  as  skilfully  as  the 
rising  science  of  the  time  knew  how  and  with  the  ten- 
derness that  religious  care  has  always  been  able  to  give. 
For  added  consolation  in  the  midst  of  their  sufferings 
and  as  a  fortifier  against  the  thought  of  death,  they  had 
religion  and  all  its  beautiful  influences,  for  which  even 
Virchow,  himself  utterly  unbelieving,  cannot  suppress  a 
tribute. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  the  Uni- 
versity of  the  City  of  Rome  was  founded  by  Pope  Boni- 
face VIII.  Only  a  year  or  two  later  the  Popes  removed 
their  capital  to  Avignon.  It  has  often  been  thought 
that,  because  of  this  removal  of  the  Papal  capital,  this 
University  of  the  City  never  came  into  existence ;  but 
we  have  definite  records  of  salaries  paid  out  of  the  Papal 
revenues  to  professors  of  law  and  medicine  about  the 
end  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

Down  in  the  South  of  France,  at  Avignon  itself,  the 
Popes  had  for  one  of  their  chamberlains  the  famous  Guy 
de  Chauliac,  who  is  always  spoken  of  as  the  Father  of 
Modern  Surgery.  One  of  the  Popes  of  the  Avignon 
period  founded  the  College  of  Twelve  Physicians  at 
Montpelier,  the  foundation  being  sufficient  to  support 
twelve  medical  students,  and  by  adding  the  prestige  of 
the  Pope's  patronage  to  the  reputation  of  the  University, 
greatly  encouraged  attendance  at  it. 

Another  of  the  Popes  of  the  Avignon  period,  Pope 
John  XXII. ,  who  is  said  by  President  White  to  have  been 
most  bitter  in  opposition  to  every  form  of  science,  actu- 
ally helped  in  the  foundation  of  two  medical  schools. 


12  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

One  of  these  was  at  Cahors,  his  birthplace,  and  the 
other  was  at  Perugia,  at  that  time  in  the  Papal  States. 
In  founding  the  medical  school  at  Perugia,  Pope  John 
insisted  that  its  standards  must  be  as  high  as  those  of 
Paris  and  Bologna,  and  required  that  the  first  teachers 
there  should  be  graduates  from  Paris  or  Bologna,  where 
were  the  two  greatest  medical  schools  of  the  time. 
Seven  years  of  study,  three  in  the  undergraduate  de- 
partment and  four  in  the  graduate  schools,  were  to  be 
required,  according  to  this  bull  of  foundation  (given  in  full 
in  the  appendix) ,  before  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medi- 
cine could  be  conferred.  If  it  is  recalled  that  this  stand- 
ard of  three  years  of  undergraduate  work  and  four  in 
the  graduate  school,  or  at  least  of  seven  years  of  Uni- 
versity work,  is  the  ideal  toward  which  our  universities 
are  struggling,  and,  it  must  be  said,  not  with  the  entire 
success  we  would  like,  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century,  then,  it  is  surprising  to  think  that  the  presi- 
dent of  a  modern  university,  deeply  interested  in  educa- 
tion in  all  its  features  and  himself  a  professor  of  history, 
should  know  so  little  of,  and  be  so  lacking  in  sympathy 
with  these  men  who  laid  the  deep  foundations  of  our 
modern  education. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  feature  of  the  relation  of 
the  Popes  to  medicine  remains  to  be  mentioned.  If  they 
really  were  the  bitter  opponents  of  things  medical  that 
Dr.  White  would  have  us  believe,  then  we  should  expect 
that  either  there  were  no  such  officials  as  Papal  physi- 
cians, or  else  that  the  men  who  occupied  these  posts 
were  the  veriest  charlatans,  who  knew  very  little  of 
medicine,  and  certainly  did  nothing  to  develop  the 
science.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  no  list  of  physi- 
cians connected  by  any  common  bond  in  history  who  are 


INTRODUCTION  13 

so  gloriously  representative  of  scientific  progress  in  med- 
icine as  the  Papal  physicians.  The  faculty  of  no  medical 
school  presents  such  a  list  of  great  names  as  those  of  the 
men  who  were  chosen  to  be  the  official  medical  attend- 
ants of  the  Popes,  and  who  were  thus  given  a  position 
of  prominence  where  their  discoveries  in  medicine  had  a 
vogue  they  otherwise  could  not  have  attained.  The  list 
of  the  Royal  physicians  of  any  reigning  house  of  Europe 
for  the  last  seven  centuries  looks  trivial  beside  the  roll 
of  Papal  physicians.  Could  the  Popes  possibly  have 
done  anything  more  than  this  for  medicine,  or  shown 
their  interest  in  its  progress,  or  made  people  realize 
better,  that  while  prayer  might  be  of  service,  every  pos- 
sible human  means  must  be  taken  to  secure,  maintain 
and  recover  health. 

To  read  even  the  headings  of  Dr.  White's  chapter  on 
from  Miracles  to  Medicine,  in  which  he  tells  of  how 
"the  medieval  miracles  of  healing  checked  medical 
science, "  how  "pastoral  medicine  held  back  scientific 
effort/'  how  "there  was  so  much  theological  discourage- 
ment of  medicine, ' '  and  finally,  how  ' '  the  study  of  Anat- 
omy was  considered  a  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost/'  in 
the  light  of  this  plain,  matter-of-fact  story  of  the  won- 
derful development  of  medical  science  in  the  ecclesias- 
tically founded  and  ruled  universities  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  makes  one  realize  into  what  a  farcical  state  of 
mind  as  regards  the  realities  of  history  such  writers 
have  forced  themselves,  and  unfortunately  have  led 
many  readers,  by  their  excursions  into  the  history  of 
medicine  and  science.  Probably  there  was  never  a  more 
pretentious  exhibition  of  ignorance  of  the  facts  of  his- 
tory than  is  displayed  by  these  expressions  and  by  the 
whole  drift  of  this  chapter.  Dr.  White  would  have  us 


14  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

believe  that  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  were 
so  backward  in  medicine  and  surgery  that  they  practi- 
cally have  no  history  in  these  departments,  or  so  little 
as  not  to  be  worth  talking  about.  The  simple  facts  show 
us  that  this  is  one  of  three  or  four  great  periods  in  hu- 
man history  in  which  there  was  the  most  wonderful  de- 
velopment of  medicine  and  surgery. 

As  we  shall  see  in  the  course  of  this  book,  there  was 
no  bull  or  any  other  document  issued  by  the  Popes  for- 
bidding dissection  or  hampering  the  development  of 
anatomy  in  any  way.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  ecclesi- 
astics, instead  of  being  behind  their  age  in  liberality  of 
spirit  with  regard  to  the  use  of  the  human  body  after 
death  for  anatomical  purposes,  were  always  ahead  of  it. 
There  has  always  existed  a  popular  horror  of  dissection, 
and  this  has  manifested  itself  from  the  earliest  times  in 
history  down  to  and  within  the  last  half  century,  in  re- 
fusal to  enact  such  secular  legislation  as  would  properly 
provide  for  the  practice  of  dissection.  This  was  as  true 
in  the  United  States  until  within  the  memory  of  men 
still  alive  as  it  had  always  been  hitherto  in  European 
history.  Dissection  came  to  be  allowed  so  freely  in  the 
medieval  universities  founded  under  ecclesiastical  influ- 
ence and  ruled  by  ecclesiastics,  as  the  result  of  the  intel- 
ligent realization  on  the  part  of  churchmen  that  the  study 
of  the  human  body  was  necessary  for  a  proper  recogni- 
tion and  appreciation  of  the  causes  of  the  ills  to  which 
flesh  is  heir.  They  realized  that  the  only  way  to  lay  the 
foundation  of  exact  medical  knowledge  was  not  only  to 
permit,  but  to  encourage  the  practice  of  dissection,  and 
accordingly  this  was  done  at  everyone  of  a  dozen  med- 
ical schools  of  Italy  during  the  fourteenth,  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries,  and  nowhere  more  so  than  at  the 


INTRODUCTION  15 

Papal  University  at  Rome  itself  during  the  sixteenth 
ceutury,  at  a  time  when,  if  we  would  believe  Dr.  White, 
the  Church  authorities  were  doing  everything  in  their 
power  to  prevent  dissection. 

None  of  the  other  sciences  allied  to  medicine  were 
hampered  in  any  way,  but,  on  the  contrary,  fostered 
and  encouraged ;  and  the  devoted  students  of  science 
were  prominent  churchmen,  some  of  whom  were  hon- 
ored with  the  title  of  saint  after  their  deaths.  In  spite 
of  declarations  to  the  contrary,  chemistry  was  not  for- 
bidden by  a  Papal  decree  or  other  document,  though  the 
practice  of  certain  alchemists  of  pretending  to  make  gold 
and  silver  out  of  baser  metals  and  thus  cheating  people 
was  condemned,  just  as  we  condemn  the  corresponding 
practice  of  selling  " gold  bricks"  at  the  present  time. 
As  will  be  made  very  clear,  the  Pope  who  issued  the  de- 
cree that  forbids  such  sharp  practices  was  a  distin- 
guished and  discriminating  patron  of  medical  education 
at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  doing  more 
for  it  than  any  ruler  for  three  centuries  after  his  time  ; 
yet  in  doing  so  he  was  only  carrying  out  the  policy  which 
had  been  maintained  by  the  Popes  before  his  time  and 
was  to  continue  ever  afterwards. 

Strange  as  it  may  appear  when  we  recall  how  much 
has  been  said  with  regard  to  Papal,  and  Church,  and 
theological  opposition  to  science,  the  story  that  we  have 
just  told  with  regard  to  the  Papal  relations  to  medicine 
and  medical  schools  must  be  retold  with  regard  to  science 
in  every  department,  and  the  scientific  studies  at  the 
great  medieval  universities.  Most  people  will  find  it 
even  more  difficult  to  accept  this  than  to  reach  a  calm 
consideration  of  the  Papal  relations  to  the  medical  sci- 
ences. Medicine  is  supposed  to  be  the  sort  of  practical 


16  THE    POPES    AND     SCIENCE 

subject  that,  in  spite  of  prejudice,  the  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities could  not  neglect  and  were  not  able  to  suppress. 
Science  in  general,  however,  is  supposed  to  be  so  dis- 
tinctly opposed  to  what  was  at  least  considered  religious 
truth,  that  the  Church  could  not  very  well  do  anything 
else  than  prevent  its  development,  or  at  least  hamper  its 
progress  to  such  an  extent  that  it  was  only  with  the  lift- 
ing of  the  ecclesiastical  incubus  in  our  own  day,  that  any 
great  scientific  advances  came  in  the  physical  sciences. 
This  is  an  entirely  false  impression  emphasized  by  the 
ridiculous  intolerance  of  writers  who  knew  practically 
nothing  of  the  real  history  of  science  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
wrote  their  own  prejudices  large  into  the  story  of  the 
times,  and  did  great  positive  harm  to  the  cause  of  truth 
by  a  pretense  of  knowledge  they  did  not  have,  but  which 
so  many  confidingly  believed  them  to  possess. 

But  it  will  at  once  be  said,  what  of  Galileo  ?  Does  not 
his  case  show  the  anti-scientific  temper  of  churchmen  ? 
Nearly  half  a  century  ago,  Cardinal  Newman  in  his 
Apologia  characteristically  observed  that  this  very  case 
sufficed  to  prove  that  the  Church  did  not  set  herself 
against  scientific  progress,  for  this  is  the  "one  stock 
argument"  to  the  contrary,  "the  exception  which 
proves  the  rule."  Commenting  upon  the  Galileo  inci- 
dent, Professor  Augustus  de  Morgan,  in  his  article  on 
the  Motion  of  the  Earth  in  the  English  Encyclopedia, 
has  expressed  exactly  the  same  conclusion.  He  is  an 
authority  not  likely  to  be  suspected  of  Catholic  sym- 
pathy. He  says : 

"The  Papal  power  must  upon  the  whole  have  been 
moderately  used  in  matters-  of  philosophy,  if  we  may 
judge  by  the  great  stress  laid  on  this  one  case  of  Galileo. 
It  is  the  standing  proof  that  an  authority  which  has 


INTRODUCTION  17 

lasted  a  thousand  years  was  all  the  time  occupied  in 
checking  the  progress  of  thought  (!)  There  are  certainly 
one  or  two  other  instances,  but  those  who  make  most  of 
the  outcry  do  not  know  them/' 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Galileo  was  prosecuted  by  the 
Roman  inquisition  on  account  of  his  astronomical  teach- 
ings. We  would  be  the  last  to  deny  that  this  was  a 
deplorable  mistake  made  by  persons  in  ecclesiastical  au- 
thority, who  endeavored  to  make  a  Church  tribunal  the 
judge  of  scientific  truth,  a  function  altogether  alien  to 
its  character  which  it  was  not  competent  to  exercise. 
The  fact  that  this  was  practically  the  only  time  that  this 
was  done  serves  to  show  that  it  was  an  unfortunate  in- 
cident, but  not  a  policy.  The  mistake  has  been  to  con- 
clude that  this  was  a  typical  case— one  of  many,  more 
flagrant  than  the  others.  This  single  incident  has  in- 
deed made  it  impossible  that  anything  of  the  same  kind 
should  ever  occur  again.  It  was  rather  because  of  the 
way  in  which  Galileo  urged  his  truths  than  because  of 
the  truths  themselves  that  he  was  condemned.  Even 
Professor  Huxley,  in  a  letter  to  Professor  St.  George 
Mivart,  November  12th,  1885,  said:  "I  gave  some  at- 
tention  to  the  case  of  Galileo  when  I  was  in  Italy,  and  I 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  Pope  and  the  College 
of  Cardinals  had  rather  the  best  of  it." 

Before  as  well  as  after  Galileo's  time  scientific  research 
was  carried  on  ardently  in  the  universities,  especially  in 
Italy.  In  the  chapter  on  Science  at  the  Medieval  Uni- 
versities, we  call  attention  to  the  many  advances  then 
made  with  regard  to  scientific  questions  in  which  the 
world  is  very  much  interested  at  the  present  time.  A 
hundred  years  before  Galileo's  time  Copernicus  went 
down  to  Italy  to  study  astronomy  and  medicine,  and 


18  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

when  his  book  was  published  it  was  dedicated  to  a  Pope. 
Copernicus  himself  was  a  faithful  churchman  all  his  life, 
came  near  being  made  a  bishop  once,  and  kept  the  dio- 
cese in  which  he  lived,  and  in  which  his  personal  friend 
was  bishop,  in  the  fold  of  the  Church  in  spite  of  Luther 
and  the  religious  revolt  all  around  it  in  Germany.  One 
of  the  great  scientists  of  the  seventeenth  century  whose 
name  is  stamped  deeply  on  the  history  of  science,  Father 
Kircher,  the  Jesuit,  was  invited  to  Rome  the  very  year 
after  Galileo's  condemnation,  and  for  thirty  years  con- 
tinued to  experiment  and  write  in  all  branches  of  science, 
not  only  with  the  approbation  of  his  own  order,  the 
Jesuits,  which  helped  him  in  every  way  by  the  collection 
of  specimens  for  his  museum,  but  also  with  the  hearty 
good  will  of  many  cardinals  who  were  his  personal 
friends,  and  with  the  constant  patronage  of  the  Popes, 
whose  generous  liberality  enabled  him  to  make  Rome 
the  greatest  centre  of  scientific  interest  during  this  cen- 
tury. 

At  this  time  and  during  the  preceding  century  the 
Roman  University  had  the  greatest  medical  school  in  the 
world.  The  names  of  its  professors  during  the  preced- 
ing century  need  only  be  mentioned  in  order  to  empha- 
size this.  They  include  such  distinguished  men  as  Eus- 
tachius  and  Varolius,  whose  names  are  forever  enshrined 
in  the  history  of  anatomy ;  Columbus,  who  discovered 
and  described  the  lesser  or  pulmonary  circulation  half 
a  century  before  Harvey's  publication  with  regard  to 
the  general  circulation  ;  Caesalpinus,  to  whom  the  Ital- 
ians attribute  the  discovery  of  the  greater  circulation 
before  Harvey.  In  the  next  century  Malpighi  was 
tempted  to  come  to  Rome  to  teach  at  the  Papal  Univer- 
sity, and  the  great  Father  of  Comparative  Anatomy 


INTRODUCTION  19 

ended  his  days  in  the  Papal  capital,  amidst  the  friend- 
ship of  all  the  high  ecclesiastics  and  with  the  social  in- 
timacy of  the  Pope.  From  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century  Bologna  is  a  Papal  city,  but  its  medical 
school,  far  from  declining  after  it  came  under  Papal 
jurisdiction,  was  even  more  brilliant  than  before,  and 
soon  came  even  to  outshine  its  previously  successful 
rival,  Padua. 

What  we  would  say  then,  is  that  the  story  of  the  sup- 
posed opposition  of  the  Church  and  the  Popes  and  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  to  science  in  any  of  its  branches, 
is  founded  entirely  on  mistaken  notions.  Most  of  it  is 
quite  imaginary.  Much  of  it  is  due  to  the  exaggeration 
of  the  significance  of  the  Galileo  incident.  Only  those 
who  know  nothing  about  the  history  of  medicine  and  of 
science  continue  to  harbor  it.  That  Dr.  White's  book, 
contradicted  as  it  is  so  directly  by  all  our  serious  his- 
tories of  medicine  and  of  science,  should  have  been  read 
by  so  many  thousands  in  this  country,  and  should  have 
been  taken  seriously  by  educated  men,  physicians,  teach- 
ers, and  even  professors  of  science  who  want  to  know 
the  history  of  their  own  sciences,  only  shows  how  easily 
even  supposedly  educated  men  may  be  led  to  follow  their 
prejudices  rather  than  their  mental  faculties,  and  em- 
phasizes the  fact  that  the  tradition  that  there  is  no  good 
that  can  possibly  come  out  of  the  Nazareth  of  the  times 
before  the  reformation,  still  dominates  the  intellects  of 
many  educated  people  who  think  that  they  are  far  from 
prejudice  and  have  minds  perfectly  open  to  conviction. 

We  would  not  leave  the  impression,  moreover,  that  it 
was  in  medicine  alone  that  the  misunderstood  Middle 
Ages  made  distinct  progress  in  science.  This  is  true  in 
every  department  of  what  we  now  call  natural  science. 


20  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

The  reason  for  the  false  impression  that  science  was  not 
studied  in  the  Middle  Ages  at  the  universities,  is  that 
the  supposed  historians  of  education  and  of  science  who 
have  made  such  declarations  have  never  taken  the 
trouble  to  look  into  the  works  of  the  great  writers  of 
this  period.  Anyone  who  does  so,  at  once  changes  his 
opinion  in  this  matter.  Humboldt,  for  instance,  the 
great  German  natural  philosopher,  has  given  ample 
credit  to  these  colleagues  of  his,  who  lived  some  six 
centuries  before  him,  yet  did  such  wonderful  work  in 
spite  of  their  inadequate  means  and  the  fact  that  they 
were  as  yet  only  groping  in  the  darkness  of  the  begin- 
nings of  science.  Whewell,  the  English  historian  of  the 
inductive  sciences,  has  also  proved  sympathetic  to 
these  old  philosophers,  and  especially  to  Albertus  Mag- 
nus and  Roger  Bacon.  Those  who  so  ignorantly  but 
with  a  pretense  of  knowledge  make  little  of  the  science 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  know  nothing  of  the  real  accomplish- 
ments of  such  men  as  Bacon,  Albertus  Magnus,  Thomas 
Aquinas,  Arnold  of  Villanova,  nor  Vincent  of  Beauvais, 
the  encyclopedist.  As  is  always  the  case,  however,  the 
ignorance  of  supposed  historians  of  science  and  educa- 
tion in  this  matter,  has  only  served  to  emphasize  the  pre- 
sumptuous assurance  of  their  declarations  as  to  the  in- 
tolerance of  the  Middle  Ages  toward  scientific  progress. 
It  is  ever  the  ignorant  man  who  has  the  least  doubt 
about  his  opinions. 

Unfortunately  many  students  of  science  followed  these 
writers  apparently  without  a  hint  of  the  deception  that 
was  being  practiced  on  them.  Not  infrequently  the 
prestige  or  institutional  position  of  the  writers  has  been 
enough  to  carry  their  works  into  a  vogue  which  has  been 
heightened  by  the  existence  of  religious  prejudice  and 


INTRODUCTION  21 

intolerance.  Usually  such  motives  are  supposed  to  be 
far  distant  from  the  scientific  mind.  In  this  case  they 
have  been,  to  some  degree  at  least,  unconsciously  pres- 
ent. There  has  unfortunately  been  a  definite  persuasion 
that  there  could  be  nothing  good  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  therefore  there  has  been  no  surprise  that  evil  should 
be  found  there.  Perhaps  there  is  nothing  sadder  in  present 
day  education,  than  the  fact  that  serious  students  and 
professors  of  science  should  thus  have  been  led  astray. 
Nothing  shows  more  clearly  the  superficialty  of  our  edu- 
cation than  the  fact  that  these  unfounded  statements 
with  regard  to  the  greatest  period  of  education  in  his- 
tory have  been  so  universally  accepted  with  so  little 
question. 

A  moment's  consideration  of  the  conditions  in  which  the 
universities  developed  will  show  how  unreasonable  is  the 
thought  that  the  Church  or  the  Popes  were  opposed  to 
any  phase  of  education. 

It  has  come  to  be  universally  conceded  in  recent  years 
that  the  Church  was  the  great  patron  of  art  and  of  let- 
ters during  these  centuries.  Without  the  inspiration 
of  her  teachings  there  would  have  been  no  sublime 
subjects  for  artists ;  without  the  lives  of  her  saints 
there  would  have  been  much  less  opportunity  for 
artistic  expression ;  without  the  patronage  of  the 
cathedral  builders,  the  high  ecclesiastics,  and  above 
all  the  monastic  orders,  on  whom,  with  so  little 
reason,  so  much  contempt  has  been  heaped,  there 
would  have  been  none  of  that  great  art  which  developed 
during  the  centuries  before  what  is  called  the  Renais- 
sance. In  literature,  everyone  of  the  great  national 
poems  that  lie  at  the  basis  of  modern  literature,  is  shot 
through  and  through  with  sublime  thoughts  that  owe 


22  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

their  origin  to  the  Church.  We  need  only  mention  the 
Cid  in  Spain,  the  Arthur  Legends  in  England,  such  works 
of  the  Meistersingers  as  Perceval  and  Arme  Heinrich, 
the  Golden  Legend,  the  Romance  of  the  Rose,  and  Dante, 
—all  written  during  the  thirteenth  century  alone,  to  il- 
lustrate Church  influence  in  literature.  This  is,  as  we 
have  said,  admitted  by  all.  It  is  supposed,  however, 
that  while  the  Church  encouraged  this  side  of  human 
development,  it  effectually  prevented  the  evolution  of 
man's  scientific  interests. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  Church  did  quite  as 
much  for  science  as  for  literature  and  art  and  charity. 
There  has  never  been  any  question  that  under  her  fos- 
tering care  philosophy  developed  in  a  very  marvelous 
way.  The  scholastic  philosophers  are  no  longer  held  in 
the  disrepute  so  ignorantly  accorded  them  in  the  last 
century.  It  is  recognized  that  scholastic  philosophy  rep- 
resents a  supremely  great  development  of  human  think- 
ing with  regard  to  the  relations  of  man  to  his  Creator, 
to  his  fellow  man,  and  to  the  universe.  Even  those  who 
do  not  accept  its  conclusions  now,  if  themselves  edu- 
cated men,  no  longer  make  little  of  those  wonderful 
thinkers,  but  sympathize  with  their  magnificent  work. 
Only  those  who  are  ignorant  of  scholastic  philosophy  en- 
tirely, still  continue  to  re-echo  the  expressions  of  critics 
whose  opinions  were  founded  on  second-hand  authorities 
and  who  confessedly  had  been  unable  to  make  anything 
out  of  the  scholastics  themselves.  This  field  of  philos- 
ophy was  the  real  danger  point  for  faith  and  the  Church, 
yet  its  study  was  encouraged  in  every  way,  provided  the 
philosophers  kept  within  the  bounds  of  their  subject. 

Just  exactly  the  same  thing  was  true  in  the  realm 
of  natural  science.  Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  those 


INTRODUCTION  23 

who  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  led  into  thinking 
that  only  for  the  last  century  or  a  little  more  have 
men  made  observations  on  nature,  and  only  com- 
paratively recently  have  the  conclusions  which  they 
reached  with  regard  to  natural  phenomena  been  of  any 
real  significance,  there  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  men  made 
great  achievements  in  physical  science  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  some  of  which  unfortunately  were  lost  sight  of 
later,  but  many  of  which  remained  to  form  the  basis  on 
which  our  modern  scientific  knowledge  has  been  built. 
In  order  to  obtain  a  proper  appreciation  of  this,  all  that 
is  necessary  is  to  study  the  works  of  the  investigating 
scholars  of  the  early  history  of  the  universities,  and  see 
how  much  that  is  considered  very  modern  they  antici- 
pated in  their  writings.  They  must  be  read  for  them- 
selves, not  be  judged  by  excerpts  chosen  by  prejudiced 
readers,  much  less  by  critics  who  were  bent  on  not  find- 
ing anything  good  in  the  Middle  Ages.  There  is  need 
of  sympathetic  interpretation  to  replace  the  ignorant 
contempt  which  has  so  far  dominated  this  period  of  the 
history  of  education.  The  precious  lesson  that  men  may 
learn  from  the  unfortunate  misunderstanding,  however, 
is  how  much  old-time  prejudice  still  dominates  the  atti- 
tude even  of  scholars— nay,  even  of  scientists  and  edu- 
cators, with  regard  to  certain  periods  in  history. 

To  most  people  it  will  be  utterly  uncomprehensible, 
however,  that  after  all  that  they  have  heard  about 
Church  opposition  to  science  and  Papal  discouragement 
of  education  as  dangerous  to  faith,  there  should  now  be 
an  absolute  denial  of  the  supposed  grounds  for  the  as- 
sertions in  this  matter.  Most  readers,  even  among  edu- 
cated people,  will  be  very  prone  to  think  that  their  im- 
pressions in  these  matters  cannot  be  entirely  wrong,  and 


24  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

that  previous  writers  on  the  subject  cannot  have  been 
either  deceiving  or  deceived.  In  all  that  relates  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  however,  before  the  date  of  the 
so-called  reformation,  it  is  important  to  remember  that 
there  came  into  existence  a  definite  body  of  Protestant 
tradition,  the  creation  of  the  reformers  who  wished  to 
blacken  the  memory  of  the  Old  Church  as  much  as  pos- 
sible to  justify  their  own  apostasy,  and  who  therefore 
spared  no  means  to  pervert  the  facts  of  history  or  to 
exaggerate  the  significance  of  historical  details  so  as  to 
produce  this  false  impression.  Subsequent  generations 
were  of tener  deceived  themselves  than  deceiving.  They 
were  sure  that  the  Church  was  opposed  to  education  and 
to  science,  and  consequently  it  was  not  hard  for  them  to 
read  in  certain  incidents  and  documents  a  meaning  quite 
other  than  their  actual  significance,  because  this  added 
meaning  agreed  with  their  prejudices  on  these  subjects. 

Every  advance  in  modern  history,  every  modification 
of  view  that  has  been  brought  about  by  the  critical  his- 
torical method  of  recent  times,  has  emphasized  this  point 
of  view  almost  without  exception.  The  distinguished 
philosophic  and  historical  writer,  the  Comte  de  Maistre, 
in  his  Soirees  of  St.  Petersburg  about  a  century  ago,  de- 
clared that  "History  for  the  last  three  centuries  (1500- 
1800)  has  been  a  conspiracy  against  the  truth. "  Just 
about  a  century  later  the  editors  of  the  Cambridge  Mod- 
ern History,  in  the  preface  to  the  first  volume  of  their 
monumental  work,  re-echoed  the  words  of  the  Comte  de 
Maistre  almost  literally  in  a  pregnant  paragraph  which 
deserves  to  be  in  the  note-book  of  everyone  who  is  try- 
ing to  get  at  the  real  truth  of  history.  They  said  : 

"  Great  additions  have  of  late  been  made  to  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  past ;  the  long  conspiracy  against  the  revela- 


INTRODUCTION  25 

tion  of  truth  has  gradually  given  way,  and  competing 
historians  all  over  the  civilized  world  have  been  zealous  to 
take  advantage  of  the  change.  The  printing  of  archives 
has  kept  pace  with  the  admission  of  enquirers ;  and 
the  total  mass  of  new  matter,  which  the  last  half -century 
has  accumulated,  amounts  to  many  thousands  of  vol- 
umes. In  view  of  changes  and  of  gains  such  as  these, 
it  has  become  impossible  for  the  historical  writer  of  the 
present  age  to  trust  without  reserve  even  to  the  most 
respected  secondary  authorities.  The  honest  student 
finds  himself  continually  deserted,  retarded,  misled  by 
the  classics  of  historical  literature,  and  has  to  hew  his 
own  way  through  multitudinous  transactions,  periodicals 
and  official  publications  in  order  to  reach  the  truth. 

"Ultimate  history  cannot  be  obtained  in  this  genera- 
tion ;  but,  so  far  as  documentary  evidence  is  at  command, 
conventional  history  can  be  discarded,  and  the  point  can 
be  shown  that  has  been  reached  on  the  road  from  one  to 
the  other." 

The  italics  in  this  passage  are  ours,  but  the  ideas  they 
emphasize  will  serve  to  show  how  necessary  it  is  for 
most  of  us  to  give  up  the  supposed  historical  truth  of 
the  preceding  generations  and  have  an  open  mind  for 
the  newer  ideas  that  are  coming  in  as  the  result  of  the 
renewed  consultation  of  original  documents  and  primal 
sources  of  information.  The  present  volume  is  written 
entirely  with  the  idea  of  bringing  out  the  facts  of  the 
relations  of  the  Popes  and  the  Church  and  the  ecclesias- 
tics, especially  of  the  centuries  before  the  reformation, 
to  science  and  to  scientific  education.  My  own  position 
as  a  professor  of  the  history  of  medicine  has  necessarily 
made  medical  science  very  prominent  in  the  book.  This, 
however,  far  from  being  a  disadvantage,  is  really  an 


26  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

advantage,  since  the  physical  sciences  of  the  medieval 
times  gathered  mainly  around  medicine,  and  it  was 
chiefly  physicians  and  medical  students  who  devoted 
most  time  to  them.  After  a  detailed  study  of  the  his- 
tory of  medical  science  in  the  Middle  Ages  as  well  of  its 
allied  sciences,  it  becomes  very  clear  that  there  was  no 
trace  of  Papal  or  Church  opposition  to  science  as  science, 
and,  on  the  contrary,  liberal  patronage,  abundant  en- 
couragement, and  even  pecuniary  aid  for  the  develop- 
ment of  scientific  education  in  every  way. 

What  we  have  tried  to  give  in  this  book,  then,  is  the 
authoritative  refutation  of  the  supposed  prohibition 
of  the  cultivation  of  certain  departments  of  medi- 
cal and  allied  sciences  by  the  Popes,  and  sufficient 
information  to  enable  students  and  teachers  of  science 
to  realize  that  the  ordinarily  accepted  notions  with 
regard  to  opposition  to  science  in  the  Middle  Ages  are 
founded  on  nothing  more  substantial  than  sublime  ig- 
norance of  the  facts  of  the  history  of  science  at  that 
time.  There  was  no  bull  against  anatomy  or  dis- 
section ;  no  bull  against  chemistry ;  the  Popes  were  the 
patrons  of  the  great  medical  scientists  and  surgeons ; 
the  Papal  Medical  School  was  one  of  the  best  in  the 
world  and  was  sedulously  fostered  ;  the  great  scientists 
of  the  Middle  Ages  were  clergymen,  and  many  of  them 
when  they  died  were  declared  saints  by  the  Church. 
The  opposite  impression  is  entirely  a  deduction  from 
false  premises  with  regard  to  the  supposed  attitude  of 
the  Church  and  churchmen.  We  shall  furnish  abundant 
authorities  of  the  first  rank  and  of  value  as  absolute  as 
there  can  be  in  present  day  history  as  to  these  ques- 
tions. The  consultation  of  these  will  furnish  further 
material  for  those  who  desire  to  have  real  knowledge  of 


INTRODUCTION  27 

the  history  of  science  in  a  magnificently  original  and 
greatly  fruitful  period. 


THE   SUPPOSED    PAPAL    PROHIBITION   OF 
DISSECTION. 

There  is  a  very  general  impression  that  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  was,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  opposed 
to  the  practice  of  dissection,  and  that  various  ecclesias- 
tical regulations  and  even  Papal  decrees  were  issued 
which  prohibited,  or  at  least  limited  to  a  very  great  de- 
gree, this  necessary  adjunct  of  medical  teaching.  These 
ecclesiastical  censures  are  supposed  to  be  in  force,  to 
some  extent  at  least,  even  at  the  present  time.  The 
persuasion  as  to  the  minatory  attitude  of  the  Church  in 
regard  to  dissection  is  so  widespread  among  even  sup- 
posedly well-educated  professional  men,  that,  as  we  have 
said  in  the  introductory  chapter,  when  there  was  ques- 
tion some  time  ago  of  opening  a  medical  school  in  New 
York  City  under  Catholic  auspices  as  a  department  of 
Fordham  University,  a  number  of  more  than  ordinarily 
intelligent  physicians  asked  :  What  would  be  done  about 
the  study  of  anatomy,  since  in  the  circumstances  sug- 
gested dissection  would  not  be  allowed  ?  This  false  im- 
pression has  been  produced  by  writers  in  the  history  of 
science  who  have  emphasized  very  strenuously  the  sup- 
posed opposition  of  the  Church  to  science,  and  as  these 
writers  had  a  certain  prestige  as  scholars  their  works 
have  been  widely  read  and  their  assertions  have  been 
unquestioned,  because  it  would  naturally  be  presumed 
that  they  would  not  make  them  without  thorough  inves- 
tigation of  such  important  questions.  Professional  men 
are  not  to  blame  if  they  have  taken  such  statements  se- 

(28) 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  29 

riously,  even  though  they  are  absolutely  without  founda- 
tion. That  statements  of  this  kind  should  have  been 
made  by  men  of  distinction  in  educational  circles  and 
should  have  passed  current  so  long,  is  only  additional 
evidence  of  an  intolerant  spirit  in  those  who  least  sus- 
pect it  in  themselves  and  are  most  ready  to  deprecate 
intolerance  in  others. 

Take  a  single  example.  Most  of  what  is  said  as  to 
the  opposition  of  the  Church  to  medicine  during  the 
Middle  Ages  in  A  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science 
with  Theology  in  Christendom,  by  Andrew  D.  White 
(Appleton's,  New  York),  is  founded  on  a  supposed 
Papal  prohibition  of  anatomy  and  on  a  subsequent  equal- 
ly supposed  Papal  prohibition  of  chemistry.  These  two 
documents  are  emphasized  so  much,  that  most  readers 
cannot  but  conclude  that,  even  without  further  evidence, 
these  are  quite  enough  to  prove  the  contention  with  re- 
gard to  the  unfortunate  opposition  of  the  Church  to 
medical  science.  Without  these  two  presumably  solid 
pillars  of  actual  Papal  documents,  what  is  said  with  re- 
gard to  the  Church  and  its  relations  to  medical  science 
in  the  Middle  Ages  amounts  to  very  little.  Much  is 
made  of  the  existence  of  superstitions  in  medicine  as 
characteristic  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  as  encouraged  by 
clergymen,  but  medical  superstitions  of  many  kinds  con- 
tinue to  have  their  hold  on  even  the  intelligent  classes 
down  to  the  present  day  in  spite  of  the  progress  of  edu- 
cation, and  in  countries  where  the  Church  has  very  little 
influence  over  the  people.  Dr.  White  quotes  with  great 
confidence  and  absolute  assurance  a  Papal  decree  issued 
in  the  year  1300  by  Pope  Boniface  VIII. ,  which  forbade 
the  mutilation  of  the  human  body  and  consequently 
hampered  all  possibility  of  progress  in  anatomy  for  sev- 


30  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

eral  important  centuries  in  the  history  of  modern  science. 
Indeed,  this  supposed  Papal  prohibition  of  dissection  is 
definitely  stated  to  have  precluded  all  opportunity  for  the 
proper  acquisition  of  anatomical  knowledge  until  the  first 
half  ot  the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  Golden  Age  of 
modern  anatomy  set  in.  This  date  being  coincident 
with  the  spread  of  the  movement  known  as  the  Protes- 
tant Reformation,  many  people  at  once  conclude  that 
somehow  the  liberality  of  spirit  that  then  came  into  the 
world,  and  is  supposed  at  least  to  have  put  an  end  to  all 
intolerance,  must  have  been  the  active  factor  in  this  de- 
velopment of  anatomy,  and  that,  as  Dr.  White  has  in- 
deed declared,  it  was  only  because  the  Church  was  forced 
from  her  position  of  opposition  that  anatomical  investi- 
gation was  allowed. 

Since  so  serious  an  accusation  is  founded  on  a  definite 
Papal  document,  it  cannot  but  be  a  matter  of  surprise 
that  those  who  have  cited  it  so  confidently  as  forbidding 
anatomy,  and  especially  dissection,  have  never  given 
the  full  text  of  the  document.  It  is  practically  impos- 
sible for  the  ordinary  reader,  or  even  for  the  serious 
student  of  the  history  of  medicine,  to  obtain  a  copy  of 
this  decree  unless  he  has  special  library  facilities  at  his 
command  and  the  help  of  those  who  are  familiar  with 
this  class  of  documents.  Many  references  have  been 
made  to  this  prohibition  by  Pope  Boniface  VIII. ,  but  no 
one  has  thought  it  worth  while  to  give,  even  in  a  foot- 
note, the  text  of  it.  The  reason  for  this  is  easy  to  un- 
derstand as  soon  as  one  reads  the  actual  text.  It  has 
nothing  to  say  at  all  with  regard  to  dissection.  It  has 
absolutely  no  reference  to  the  cutting  up  of  the  human 
body  for  teaching  purposes.  Its  purpose  is  very  plain, 
and  is  stated  so  that  there  can  be  no  possible  misappre- 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  31 

hension  of  its  meaning.  Here  we  have  an  excellent  il- 
lustration of  what  the  editors  of  the  Cambridge  Modern 
History  declared  to  be  the  breaking  up  of  the  long  con- 
spiracy against  the  truth  by  the  consultation  of  original 
documents. 

Through  the  kindness  of  the  Rev.  D.  A.  Corbett,  of 
the  Seminary  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  Overbrook,  Pa., 
I  have  been  able  to  secure  a  copy  of  Pope  Boniface's  de- 
cree, and  this  at  once  disposes  of  the  assertion  that  dis- 
section was  forbidden  or  anatomy  in  any  way  hampered 
by  it.  Father  Corbett  writes  : 

"The  Bull  De  Sepulturis  of  Boniface  VIII.  is  not  found 
in  the  Collectio  Bullarum  of  Coquelines,  nor  is  it  incor- 
porated in  the  Liber  Sextus  Decretalium  Divi  Bonif acii 
Papae  VIII. ,  though  it  is  from  here  that  it  is  quoted  in 
the  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France  (as  referred  to  by 
President  White).  It  appears  in  an  appendix  to  this 
sixth  book  among  the  Extra vagantes,  a  term  that  is  used 
to  signify  that  the  documents  contained  under  it  were 
issued  at  a  time  somewhat  apart  from  the  period  this 
special  book  of  decretals  was  supposed  to  cover.  The 
Liber  Sextus  was  published  in  1298.  This  '  Bull  De  Se- 
pulturis '  was  not  issued  until  1300.  It  is  to  be  found  in 
the  third  book  of  the  Extra  vagantes,  Chapter  I." 

Even  a  glance  at  the  title  would  seem  to  be  sufficient 
to  show  that  this  document  did  not  refer  even  distantly 
to  dissection,  and  this  makes  it  all  the  harder  to  under- 
stand the  misapprehension  that  ensued  in  the  matter,  if 
the  document  was  quoted  in  good  faith,  for  usually  the 
compression  necessary  in  the  title  is  the  source  of  such 
errors.  The  full  text  of  the  bull  only  confirms  the  abso- 
lute absence  of  any  suggestion  of  forbidding  dissection 
or  discouraging  the  study  of  anatomy. 


32  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

"Title— Concerning  Burials.1  Boniface  VIII.  Per- 
sons cutting  up  the  bodies  of  the  dead,  barbarously  boil- 
ing them,  in  order  that  the  bones,  being  separated  from 
the  flesh,  may  be  carried  for  burial  into  their  own  coun- 
tries, are  by  the  very  act  excommunicated. 

' '  As  there  exists  a  certain  abuse,  which  is  character- 
ized by  the  most  abominable  savagery,  but  which  never- 
theless some  of  the  faithful  have  stupidly  adopted,  We, 
prompted  by  motives  of  humanity,  have  decreed  that  all 
further  mangling  of  the  human  body,  the  very  mention 
of  which  fills  the  soul  with  horror,  should  be  henceforth 
abolished. 

"The  custom  referred  to  is  observed  with  regard  to 
those  who  happen  to  be  in  any  way  distinguished  by 
birth  or  position,  who,  when  dying  in  foreign  lands, 
have  expressed  a  desire  to  be  buried  in  their  own  coun- 
try. The  custom  consists  of  disemboweling  and  dis- 
membering the  corpse,  or  chopping  it  into  pieces  and 
then  boiling  it  so  as  to  remove  the  flesh  before  sending 
the  bones  home  to  be  buried— all  from  a  distorted  re- 
spect for  the  dead.  Now,  this  is  not  only  abominable 
in  the  sight  of  God,  but  extremely  revolting  under  every 
human  aspect.  Wishing,  therefore,  as  the  duty  of  our 
office  demands,  to  provide  a  remedy  for  this  abuse,  by 
which  the  custom,  which  is  such  an  abomination,  so  in- 
human and  so  impious,  may  be  eradicated  and  no  longer 
be  practiced  by  anyone,  We,  by  our  apostolic  authority, 
decree  and  ordain  that  no  matter  of  what  position  or 
family  or  dignity  they  may  be,  no  matter  in  what  cities 
or  lands  or  places  in  which  the  worship  of  the  Catholic 
faith  flourishes,  the  practice  of  this  or  any  similar  abuse 
with  regard  to  the  bodies  of  the  dead  should  cease  for- 

1  See  Latin  text  in  full  in  appendix. 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  33 

ever,  no  longer  be  observed,  and  that  the  hands  of  the 
faithful  should  not  be  stained  by  such  barbarities. 

"  And  in  order  that  the  bodies  of  the  dead  should  not 
be  thus  impiously  and  barbarously  treated  and  then 
transported  to  the  places  in  which,  while  alive,  they  had 
selected  to  be  buried,  let  them  be  given  sepulture  for  the 
time  either  in  the  city  or  the  camp  or  in  the  place  where 
they  have  died,  or  in  some  neighboring  place,  so  that, 
when  finally  their  bodies  have  been  reduced  to  ashes  or 
otherwise,  they  may  be  brought  to  the  place  where 
they  wish  to  be  buried  and  there  be  interred.  And,  if 
the  executor  or  executrix  of  the  aforesaid  defunct,  or 
those  of  his  household,  or  anyone  else  of  whatever 
order,  condition,  state  or  grade  he  may  be,  even  if  he 
should  be  clothed  with  episcopal  dignity,  should  presume 
to  attempt  anything  against  the  tenor  of  this  our  statute 
and  ordination,  by  inhumanly  and  barbarously  treating 
the  bodies  of  the  dead,  as  we  have  described,  let  him 
know  that  by  the  very  fact  he  incurs  the  sentence  of 
excommunication,  from  which  he  cannot  obtain  absolu- 
tion (unless  at  the  moment  of  death) ,  except  from  the 
Holy  See.  And  besides,  the  body  that  has  been  thus 
barbarously  treated  shall  be  left  without  Christian 
burial.  Let  no  one,  therefore,  etc.  (Here  follows  the 
usual  formula  of  condemnation  for  the  violation  of  the 
prescriptions  of  a  decree. )  Given  at  the  Lateran  Palace, 
on  the  twelfth  of  the  calends  of  March,  in  the  sixth  year 
of  our  pontificate. ' ' 

The  reason  for  the  bull  is  very  well  known.  During 
the  crusades,  numbers  of  the  nobility  who  died  at  a  dis- 
tance from  their  homes  in  infidel  countries  were  pre- 
pared for  transportation  and  burial  in  their  own  lands 
by  dismemberment  and  boiling.  The  remains  of  Louis 


34  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

IX.,  of  France,  and  a  number  of  his  relatives  who  per- 
ished on  the  ill-fated  crusade  in  Egypt  in  1270,  are  said 
to  have  been  brought  back  to  France  in  this  fashion. 
The  body  of  the  famous  German  Emperor,  Frederick 
Barbarossa,  who  was  drowned  in  the  river  Saleph  near 
Jerusalem,  was  also  treated  thus  in  order  that  the  re- 
mains might  be  transported  to  Germany  without  serious 
decomposition  being  allowed  to  disturb  the  ceremonials  of 
subsequent  obsequies.  Such  examples  were  very  likely 
to  be  imitated  by  many.  The  custom,  as  can  be  appre- 
ciated from  these  instances  from  different  nations,  was 
becoming  so  widespread  as  to  constitute  a  serious  source 
of  danger  to  health,  and  might  easily  have  furnished  oc- 
casion for  the  conveyance  of  disease.  It  is  almost  need- 
less to  say  to  our  generation  that  it  was  eminently  un- 
hygienic. Any  modern  authority  in  sanitation  would  at 
once  declare  against  it,  and  the  custom  would  be  put  an 
end  to  without  more  ado.  There  can  be  no  doubt  at  all 
then  that  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  accomplished  good,  not 
evil,  by  the  publication  of  this  bull.  So  anyone  with 
modern  views  as  to  the  danger  of  disease  from  the  fool- 
ish custom  which  it  abolished  would  at  once  have  de- 
clared, and  yet,  by  a  perversion  of  its  signification,  it 
came  to  be  connected  with  a  supposed  prohibition  of 
dissection.  For  this  misunderstanding  Pope  Boniface 
VIII.  has  had  to  suffer  all  sorts  of  reproaches  and  the 
Church  has  been  branded  as  opposed  to  anatomy  by  his- 
torians (!) 

Is  it  possible,  however,  that  this  bull  was  misinter- 
preted so  as  to  forbid  dissection,  or  at  least  certain 
forms  of  anatomical  preparation  which  were  useful  for 
the  study  and  teaching  of  anatomy  ?  That  is  what  Dr. 
White  asserts.  He  shows,  moreover,  in  his  History  of 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  35 

the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology,  that  he  knew 
that  the  document  in  question  was  perfectly  inoffensive 
as  regards  any  prohibition  of  dissection  in  itself,  but  in- 
sists that  by  a  misinterpretation,  easy  to  understand  as 
he  considers,  because  of  the  supposed  opposition  of 
ecclesiastics  to  medical  science,  it  did  actually  prevent 
anatomical  development.  President  White  says:  "As 
to  the  decretal  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII. ,  the  usual  state- 
ment is  that  it  forbade  all  dissections.  While  it  was  un- 
doubtedly construed  universally  to  prohibit  dissection 
for  anatomical  purposes,  its  declared  intent  was  as 
stated  in  the  text ;  that  it  was  constantly  construed 
against  anatomical  investigations  cannot  for  a  moment 
be  denied. " 

If  a  misinterpretation  were  subsequently  made,  surely 
Pope  Boniface  VIII.  must  not  be  held  responsible  for  it ; 
yet  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Dr.  White  shows  that  he 
knew  very  well  that  this  bull  did  not  forbid  the  practice 
of  dissection,  he  does  not  hesitate  to  use  over  and  over 
again  expressions  which  would  imply  that  some  formal 
decision  against  dissection  itself  had  been  made,  though 
this  is  the  only  Papal  document  he  refers  to.  He  even 
goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  ' '  anatomical  investigation  was 
made  a  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost. "  He  frequently  re- 
peats that  for  three  centuries  after  the  issuance  of  this 
bull  the  development  of  anatomy  was  delayed  and  ham- 
pered, and  insists  that  only  that  Vesalius  at  great  per- 
sonal risk  broke  through  this  Church  opposition,  modern 
anatomy  would  never  have  developed.  He  proceeds 
constantly  on  the  theory  that  it  was  always  this  bull 
that  was  in  fault,  though  he  confesses  that  if  so,  it  was 
by  a  misunderstanding  ;  and  the  only  fault  he  can  find 
to  attribute  to  the  Pope  is  a  lack  of  infallibility,  as  he 


36  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

calls  it,  because  he  was  not  able  to  foresee  that  his  bull 
would  be  so  misunderstood. 

I  suppose  we  are  to  understand  from  this  that  Dr. 
White  considers  that  he  knows  the  meaning  of  the  word 
infallibility.  It  is  not  a  hard  word  to  understand  if  one 
wishes  to  understand  it.  The  meaning  that  he  gives  it 
in  this  passage  is  so  entirely  different  from  its  accepted 
meaning  among  Catholics,  that  any  schoolboy  in  any  of 
our  parochial  schools  would  tell  him  that  the  word  was 
never  used  by  Catholics  in  the  sense  in  which  he  here 
employs  it.  It  is  so  misunderstood  popularly  outside  of 
the  Church,  and  this  Dr.  White  doubtless  knew  very  well. 
When  a  man  uses  a  term  in  medicine  in  a  different  sense 
to  that  which  is  ordinarily  accepted,  we  consider  him 
ignorant ;  but  when  he  deliberately  uses  it  in  another 
sense  for  his  own  purposes  because  of  a  false  signifi- 
cance attached  to  it  in  the  popular  mind,  we  have  a  spe- 
cial name  for  him. 

The  whole  matter,  however,  resolves  itself  into  the 
simple  question,  "Was  dissection  prevented  and  ana- 
tomical investigation  hampered  after  the  issuance  of  the 
bull  ?  "  This  is  entirely  a  question*  of  fact.  The  history 
of  anatomy  will  show  whether  dissection  ceased  or  not 
at  this  time.  Now  if  those  who  so  confidently  make  as- 
sertions in  this  matter  had  ever  gone  to  a  genuine  his- 
tory of  anatomy,  they  would  have  learned  at  once  that, 
far  from  this  being  the  time  when  dissection  ceased,  the 
year  1300  is  almost  exactly  the  date  for  which  we  have 
the  first  definite  evidence  of  the  making  of  dissections 
and  the  gradual  development  of  anatomical  investigation 
by  this  means  in  connection  with  the  Italian  universities. 
This  is  such  a  curious  coincidence  that  I  always  call  it  to  the 
attention  of  medical  students  in  lecturing  on  this  subject. 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION          37 

The  first  dissection  of  which  we  have  definite  record, 
Roth  tells  us  in  his  life  of  Vesalius,  was  a  so-called  pri- 
vate anatomy  or  dissection  made  for  medico-legal  pur- 
poses. Its  date  is  the  year  1302,  within  two  years  after 
the  bull.  A  nobleman  had  died  and  there  was  a  sus- 
picion that  he  had  been  poisoned.  The  judge  ordered 
that  an  autopsy  be  made  in  order  to  determine  this  ques- 
tion. Unfortunately  we  do  not  know  what  the  decision 
of  the  doctors  in  the  case  was.  We  know  only  that  the 
case  was  referred  to  them.  Now  it  seems  very  clear 
that  if  this  had  not  been  a  common  practice  before,  the 
court  would  not  have  adopted  this  measure,  apparently 
as  a  matter  of  judicial  routine,  as  seems  to  have  been 
the  case  in  this  instance.  Had  it  been  the  first  time  that 
it  was  done  instead  of  having  the  record  of  the  trans- 
action preserved  only  by  chance,  any  mention  of  it  at  all 
would  have  appeared  so  striking  to  the  narrator,  that  he 
would  have  been  careful  to  tell  the  whole  story,  and 
especially  the  decision  reached  in  the  matter. 

After  this,  evidence  of  dissection  accumulates  rapidly. 
During  the  second  decade  of  the  century  Mondino,  the 
first  writer  on  anatomy,  was  working  at  Bologna.  We 
have  the  records  of  his  having  made  some  dissections  in 
connection  with  his  university  teaching  there,  and  event- 
ually he  published  a  text-book  on  dissection  which  be- 
came the  guide  for  dissectors  for  the  next  two  centuries. 
Within  five  years  after  this  we  have  a  story  of  students 
being  haled  to  court  for  body-snatching  for  anatomical 
purposes,  and  about  this  time  there  was,  according  to 
Rashdall  in  his  History  of  the  Universities,  a  statute  of 
the  University  of  Bologna  which  required  the  teacher  in 
anatomy  to  dissect  a  body,  if  the  students  brought  it  to 
him.  More  than  ten  years  earlier  than  this,  that  is, 


38  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

within  ten  years  after  the  supposed  Papal  prohibition, 
there  are  records  of  dissections  having  been  made  at 
Venice  in  public,  for  the  benefit  of  the  doctors  of  the 
city,  at  the  expense  of  the  municipal  treasury.  During 
the  first  half  of  this  century  money  was  allowed  at  Bo- 
logna for  wine,  to  be  given  to  those  who  attended  the 
public  dissections,  and  if  we  recall  the  state  in  which 
the  bodies  must  have  been  at  a  time  when  the  use  of 
preservatives  was  unknown,  we  can  well  understand  the 
need  for  it.  All  this  shows,  as  I  have  said,  that  the  date 
of  Boniface's  bull  (1300),  far  from  representing  the 
eclipse  of  anatomy,  actually  fixes  the  date  of  the  dawn 
of  modern  practical  anatomical  study. 

The  most  interesting  question  in  this  whole  discussion 
is  as  to  how  much  dissection  Mondino  actually  did  during 
the  second  decade  of  the  fourteenth  century.  His  book 
became  the  manual  of  dissection  that  was  in  practically 
every  dissector's  hands  for  several  centuries  after. 
Probably  no  book  of  its  kind  has  ever  been  more  used, 
and  none  maintained  its  place  as  the  standard  work  in 
this  department  for  so  long.  No  less  than  25  printed 
editions  of  it  appeared  altogether.  It  would  seem  to  be 
utterly  improbable  that  the  author  of  a  text-book  of  this 
kind  could  have  made  only  a  few  dissections.  There  are 
a  number  of  historians  who  have  claimed,  nevertheless, 
that  at  most  he  did  not  dissect  more  than  three  or  four 
bodies.  This  is  all  that  we  have  absolute  evidence  for, 
that  is  to  say,  only  these  dissections  are  recorded.  It  is 
easy  to  understand,  however,  that  a  professor  of  anatomy 
might  make  even  hundreds  of  dissections,  and  yet  have 
something  to  say  only  about  a  very  few  which  happened 
to  present  some  special  peculiarities.  The  absence  of 
further  records  may  readily  be  accounted  for  also  in 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  39 

other  ways.  The  art  of  printing  was  not  yet  invented; 
paper  had  only  just  been  discovered  and  was  extremely 
expensive,  and  many  factors  conspired  to  destroy  any 
records  that  may  have  been  made. 

Outsiders  dipping  into  the  history  of  medicine  have 
made  much  of  our  paucity  of  documentary  evidence  with 
regard  to  what  Mondino  actually  did,  and  have,  when  it 
suited  their  purpose,  insisted  that  this  first  author  of  a 
dissector's  manual  did  but  the  three  or  four  dissections 
explicitly  mentioned.  Those  who  are  more  familiar  with 
the  history  of  medicine,  and  especially  of  anatomy,  are 
persuaded  that  he  must  have  done  many.  In  the  first 
class  of  writers  is  Prof.  White,  for  instance,  who  de- 
clares positively  that  Mondino  did  not  dissect  more 
bodies  than  those  of  which  we  have  absolute  records. 
According  to  his  emphatically  expressed  opinion,  the 
reason  why  the  father  of  dissection  did  not  dissect  more 
was  because  of  ecclesiastical  opposition.  Even  these 
few  dissections  were  due  to  some  favoring  chance  or  the 
laxity  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  or  Mondino  might 
have  paid  dear  for  his  audacity.  No  one  else,  according 
to  Prof.  White,  dared  to  encounter  the  awful  penalties  that 
might  have  been  inflicted  on  Mondino  un til  Vesalius,  more 
than  two  centuries  later,  broke  through  "the  ecclesias- 
tical barrier"  and  gave  liberty  to  anatomists.  Prof. 
Lewis  S.  Pilcher,  of  Brooklyn,  who  has  made  a  special 
study  of  Mondino  and  his  times,  who  has  consulted  that 
author's  original  editions,  who  has  searched  out  the  tradi- 
tions with  regard  to  him  in  the  very  scene  of  his  labors  in 
Bologna,  thinks  quite  differently.  Prof.  White  has  a  pur- 
pose, that  of  minimizing  the  work  done  in  anatomy  dur- 
ing the  fourteenth  century  ;  Prof.  Pilcher 's  only  purpose 
is  to  bring  out  the  truth  with  regard  to  the  history  of 


40  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

anatomy.  In  the  Medical  Library  and  Historical  Jour- 
nal for  December,  1906,  Prof.  Pilcher  has  an  article  en- 
titled The  Mondino  Myth,  by  which  term  he  designates 
the  idea  that  Mondino  dissected  but  a  few  bodies.  He 
says  with  regard  to  this  subject : 

"The  changes  have  been  rung  by  medical  historians 
upon  a  casual  reference  in  Mondino' s  chapter  on  the 
uterus  to  the  bodies  of  two  women  and  one  sow  which 
he  had  dissected,  as  if  these  were  the  first  and  the  only 
cadavers  dissected  by  him.  The  context  involved  no 
such  construction.  He  is  enforcing  a  statement  that  the 
size  of  the  uterus  may  vary,  and  to  illustrate  it  remarks 
that,  '  a  woman  whom  I  anatomized  in  the  month  of 
January  last  year  (1315  Anno  Christi),  had  a  larger 
uterus  than  one  whom  I  anatomized  in  the  month  of 
March  of  the  same  year. '  And  further,  he  says,  '  the 
uterus  of  a  sow  which  I  dissected  in  1316  (the  year  in 
which  he  was  writing)  was  a  hundred  times  greater 
than  any  I  had  seen  in  the  human  female,  for  she  was 
pregnant,  and  contained  thirteen  pigs. '  These  happen 
to  be  the  only  references  to  specific  bodies  that  he  makes 
in  his  treatise.  But  it  is  a  far  cry  to  wring  out  of  these 
references  the  conclusions  that  these  are  the  only  dissec- 
tions he  made.  It  is  quite  true  that  if  we  incline  to  en- 
shroud his  work  in  a  cloud  of  mystery,  and  to  figure  it 
as  an  unprecedented,  awe-inspiring  feature  to  break 
down  the  prejudices  of  the  ages,  it  is  easy  to  think  of 
him  as  having  timidly  profaned  the  human  body  in  his 
anatomizing  zeal  in  but  one  or  two  instances.  His  own 
language,  however,  throughout  his  book  is  that  of  a  man 
who  was  familiar  with  the  differing  conditions  of  the 
organs  found  in  many  different  bodies— a  man  who  was 
habitually  dissecting. " 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  41 

As  I  think  must  be  clear  to  any  one  who  knows  Mon- 
dino's  book,  no  other  conclusion  than  this  suggested  by 
Prof.  Pilcher  can  be  drawn.  This  opinion  has  been 
frankly  stated  by  every  historian  of  anatomy  in  recent 
years.  Puschmann  says  it  very  clearly.  Von  Toply  is 
evidently  of  the  same  opinion.  These  are  the  latest  au- 
thorities in  the  history  of  anatomy.  No  other  conclu- 
sion than  this  could  well  be  reached  by  anyone  who  has 
studied  the  question  seriously.  Pilcher  confirms  this  in 
the  article  already  quoted  in  the  following  paragraph  : 

"  Salernum  was  not  alone  in  its  legalization  of  the  dis- 
section of  human  bodies  before  the  first  public  work  of 
Mondino,  for,  according  to  a  document  of  the  Maggiore 
Consiglio  of  Venice  of  1308,  it  appears  that  there  was  a 
college  of  medicine  in  Venice,  which  was  even  then  au- 
thorized to  dissect  a  body  once  every  year.  Common 
experience  tells  us  that  the  embodiment  of  such  regula- 
tions into  formal  law  would  occur  only  after  a  consider- 
able preceding  period  of  discussion,  and  in  this  particular 
field,  of  clandestine  practice.  It  is  too  much  to  ask  us 
to  believe  that  in  all  this  period,  from  the  date  of  the 
promulgation  of  Frederick's  decree  of  1241  to  the  first 
public  demonstration  by  Mondino  at  Bologna  in  1315, 
the  decree  had  been  a  dead  letter  and  no  human  body 
had  been  anatomized.  It  is  true  there  is  not,  as  far  as 
I  am  aware,  any  record  of  any  such  work,  and  com- 
mentators and  historians  of  a  later  date  have,  without 
exception,  accepted  the  view  that  none  was  done,  and 
thereby  heightened  the  halo  assigned  to  Mondino  as  the 
one  who  ushered  a  new  era.  Such  a  view  seems  to  me 
to  be  incredible.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  undeniable  that 
at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  idea  of 
dissecting  the  human  body  was  not  a  novel  one;  the  im- 


42  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE  ' 

portance  of  a  knowledge  of  the  intimate  structure  of  the 
body  had  already  been  appreciated  by  divers  ruling 
bodies,  and  specific  regulations  prescribing  its  practice 
had  been  enacted.  It  is  more  reasonable  to  believe  that 
in  the  era  preceding  immediately  that  of  Mondino,  human 
bodies  were  being  opened  and  after  a  fashion  anatomized. 
All  that  we  know  of  the  work  of  Mondino  suggests  that  it 
was  not  a  new  enterprise  in  which  he  was  a  pioneer,  but 
rather  that  he  brought  to  an  old  practice  a  new  enthus- 
iasm and,  better  methods,  which,  caught  on  the  rising 
wave  of  interest  in  medical  teaching  at  Bologna,  and 
preserved  by  his  own  energy  as  a  writer  in  the  first  orig- 
inal systematic  treatise  written  since  the  time  of  Galen, 
created  for  him  in  subsequent  uncritical  times  the  repu- 
tation of  being  the  restorer  of  the  practice  of  anatomiz- 
ing the  human  body,  the  first  one  to  demonstrate  and 
teach  such  knowledge  since  the  time  of  the  Ptolemaic 
anatomists,  Erasistratus  and  Herophilus." 

In  order  to  show  that  Mondino  did  not  perform  only 
the  two  or  three  dissections  which  he  himself  for  special 
reasons  mentions,  but  many  more,  Professor  Pilcher  has 
made  a  series  of  quotations  from  the  Bolognese  anatom- 
ist's manual  of  dissection.  It  is  after  all  quite  easy  to 
understand  that  if  dissections  were  common,  there  would 
be  no  records  of  most  of  them,  as  they  would  be  too 
commonplace  for  chroniclers  to  mention.  Only  those 
that  have  some  special  feature  are  by  chance  mentioned 
in  some  accounts  of  doings  at  the  university.  The  rec- 
ords of  the  actual  number  of  dissections  at  most  medical 
schools,  even  a  century  ago,  are  not  now  available  in 
most  cases.  On  the  other  hand,  no  one  can  read  these 
quotations  from  Mondino 's  book  without  realizing  that 
the  man  who  wrote  these  passages  had  made  many  dis- 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  43 

sections,  and  that  it  was  a  common  practice  for  him  to 
make  anatomical  preparations  in  many  different  ways, 
under  many  different  circumstances  and  for  many  dif- 
ferent purposes. 

The  second  quotation  shows,  in  fact,  that  Mondino  had 
the  custom  sometimes  of  boiling  his  bodies  before  dis- 
secting them  when  he  wished  to  demonstrate  special 
features,  and  he  promises  to  make  such  an  anatomy  for 
his  students  at  another  time.  If  the  bull  of  Pope  Boni- 
face VIII.  was  misinterpreted  in  any  way  to  prohibit 
dissection,  this  would  surely  be  the  practice  supposed  to 
fall  under  its  provisions.  Here  we  find  Mondino,  less 
than  twenty  years  after  the  promulgation  of  the  bull, 
writing  about  this  very  practice,  however,  and  calmly 
suggesting  that  he  follows  it  as  a  routine,  in  a  book  that 
was  published  without  let  or  hindrance  from  the  eccles- 
iastical authorities,  and  that  became  for  the  next  two 
centuries  the  most  used  book  in  the  teaching  of  anatomy 
in  educational  institutions  that  were  directly  under  ec- 
clesiastical authorities.  If  the  bull  was  misinterpreted 
so  as  to  forbid  dissection,  as  has  been  said,  surely  this 
flagrant  violation  of  it  would  not  have  been  permitted. 
It  is  clear  that,  if  there  was  a  misinterpretation,  it  must 
have  come  later  in  the  history  of  anatomy.  But  of  that 
we  shall  find  no  trace  any  more  than  at  this  time. 

Here  are  the  quotations  from  the  Anatomy  of  Mon- 
dino which  show  that  he  practiced  not  one  but  many 
methods  of  making  dissections,  according  to  the  pur- 
poses he  had  in  view.  The  leaf  and  line  references  are 
to  the  Dryander  Edition,  Marburg,  1541.  (Taken  from 
Prof.  Pilcher.) 

"  I  do  not  consider  separately  here  the  anatomy  of 
component  parts,  because  their  anatomy  does  not  appear 


44  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

clearly  in  the  fresh  subject,  but  rather  in  those  macer- 
ated in  water. ' '  (Leaf  2,  lines  8-13. ) 

"  ...  <  these  differences  are  more  noticeable 
in  the  cooked  or  perfectly  dried  body,  and  so  you  need 
not  be  concerned  about  them,  as  perhaps  /  will  make  an 
anatomy  upon  such  a  one  at  another  time  and  will  write 
what  I  observe  with  my  own  senses,  as  I  have  proposed 
from  the  beginning/'  (Leaf  60,  lines  14-17.) 

''What  the  members  are  to  which  these  nerves  come 
cannot  well  be  seen  in  such  dissection  as  this,  but  it 
should  be  liquified  with  rain  water,  and  this  is  not  con- 
templated in  the  present  body."  (Leaf  60,  lines  31-33.) 

"After  the  veins  you  will  note  many  muscles  and 
many  large  and  strong  cords,  the  complete  anatomy  of 
which  you  will  not  endeavor  to  find  in  such  a  body,  but 
in  a  body  dried  in  the  sun  for  three  years,  as  I  have  de- 
monstrated at  another  time  ;  I  also  declared  completely 
their  number,  and  wrote  the  anatomy  of  the  muscles  of 
the  arms,  hands  and  feet  in  a  lecture  which  I  gave  over 
the  first,  second,  third  and  fourth  subjects." 

As  must  be  clear  to  anyone,  many  of  these  expressions 
are,  as  Professor  Pilcher  insists,  intelligible  only  if  we 
accept  the  conclusion  that  their  author  had  done  many 
dissections,  under  many  and  varying  circumstances,  dur- 
ing his  career  as  an  anatomist  before  writing  this  vol- 
ume. We  have  other  evidence,  of  a  much  more  direct 
character,  for  this  fact.  Mondino  uses  the  expression, 
that  he  had  demonstrated  many  times  a  certain  anatom- 
ical feature  which  could  only  be  the  subject  of  demon- 
stration after  dissection.  The  expression  occurs  in  a 
description  of  the  hypo-gastric  region  which  he  calls  the 
sumen.  Through  this  region,  he  says,  there  pass  to  the 
surface  certain  veins  which  transmit  fluid  in  the  fetus 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  45 

during  the  time  of  its  life  in  utero.  For  this  reason  they 
are  better  studied  in  the  unborn  than  in  the  fully  devel- 
oped, since  they  lose  their  function  as  soon  as  complete 
development  is  reached.  In  this  description  Mondino 
uses  the  words  "ego hoc  modo  multitotiens monstravi." 

As  with  regard  to  this,  so  as  to  another  bit  of  evidence 
of  Mondino's  frequency  of  dissection,  Professor  Pilcher 
has  supplied  the  material.  He  says  in  his  article  on  the 
Mondino  Myth,  already  cited  : 

"Shortly  after  his  (Mondino's)  death,  the  young  Guy 
de  Chauliac,  of  Montpelier,  came  to  Bologna  to  study 
anatomy  under  the  tuition  of  Mondino' s  successor,  Ber- 
trucius.  When  he  wrote  his  own  treatise,  '  La  Grande 
Chirurgie, '  thirty  years  later,  he  prefaced  it  with  an  ap- 
preciation of  the  study  of  anatomy,  saying :  '  It  is  nec- 
essary and  useful  to  every  physician  to  know  first  of  all 
anatomy ' ;  and  that  a  knowledge  of  anatomy  was  to  be 
acquired  by  two  means  ;  '  these  are, '  he  says,  '  the  study 
of  books,  a  means  useful  indeed,  but  not  sufficient  to  ex- 
plain those  things  which  can  only  be  appreciated  by  the 
senses  ;  the  other,  experimentally  on  the  dead  body,  ac- 
cording to  the  treatise  of  Mondinus,  of  Bologna,  which 
he  has  written,  and  which  (experimental  anatomy  on 
the  cadaver)  he  (Mondinus)  has  done  many  times'— 
*  et  ipsam  fecit  multitoties. ' ' 

Besides  this  evidence  we  have  details  of  the  lives  of 
two  of  Mondino's  assistants  which  furnish  further  proofs 
of  the  frequency  of  dissection  at  the  University  of  Bo- 
logna during  these  first  two  decades  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  which,  it  will  be  recalled,  are  also  the  first  two 
decades  after  the  promulgation  of  Pope  Boniface's  bull. 
Curiously  enough,  one  of  these  assistants  was  a  young 
woman  who,  as  was  not  infrequently  the  custom  at  this 


46  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

time  in  the  Italian  universities,  was  matriculated  as  a 
student  at  Bologna.  She  took  up  first  philosophy  and 
afterwards  anatomy  under  Mondino.  While  it  is  not 
generally  realized,  co-education  was  quite  common  at 
the  Italian  universities  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  and  at  no  time  since  the  foundation  of  the 
universities  has  a  century  passed  in  Italy  without  distin- 
guished women  occupying  professors'  chairs  at  some  of 
the  Italian  universities.  This  young  woman,  Alessandra 
Giliani,  of  Persiceto,  a  country  district  not  far  from  Bo- 
logna, took  up  the  study  of  anatomy  with  ardor  and, 
strange  as  it  may  appear,  became  especially  enthusiastic 
about  dissection.  She  became  so  skilful  that  she  was 
made  the  prosector  of  anatomy,  that  is,  one  who  pre- 
pares bodies  for  demonstration  by  the  professor. 

According  to  the  Cronaca  Persicetana,  quoted  by  Med- 
ici in  his  History  of  the  Anatomical  School  of  Bologna : 

"  She  became  most  valuable  to  Mondino  because  she 
would  cleanse  most  skilfully  the  smallest  vein,  the  ar- 
teries, all  ramifications  of  the  vessels,  without  lacerating 
or  dividing  them,  and  to  prepare  them  for  demonstration 
she  would  fill  them  with  various  colored  liquids,  which, 
after  having  been  driven  into  the  vessels,  would  harden 
without  destroying  the  vessels.  Again,  she  would  paint 
these  same  vessels  to  their  minute  branches  so  perfectly 
and  color  them  so  naturally  that,  added  to  the  wonderful 
explanations  and  teachings  of  the  master,  they  brought 
him  great  fame  and  credit."  This  whole  passage  shows 
a  wonderful  anticipation  of  all  our  most  modern  methods 
—injection,  painting,  hardening— of  making  anatomical 
preparations  for  class  and  demonstration  purposes. 

Some  of  the  details  of  the  story  have  been  doubted, 
but  her  memorial  tablet,  erected  at  the  time  of  her  death 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  47 

in  the  Church  of  San  Pietro  e  Marcellino  of  the  Hospital 
of  Santa  Maria  de  Mareto,  gives  all  the  important  facts, 
and  tells  also  the  story  of  the  grief  of  her  fiance,  who  was 
himself  Mondino' s  other  assistant.  This  was  Otto  Agen- 
ius,  who  had  made  for  himself  a  name  as  an  assistant 
to  the  chair  of  Anatomy  in  Bologna,  and  of  whom  there 
were  great  hopes  entertained  because  he  had  already 
shown  signs  of  genius  as  an  investigator  in  anatomy. 
These  hopes  were  destined  to  grievous  disappointment, 
however,  for  Otto  died  suddenly,  before  he  had  reached 
his  thirtieth  year.  The  fact  that  both  these  assistants 
of  Mondino  died  young  and  suddenly,  would  seem  to 
point  to  the  fact  that  probably  dissection  wounds  in  those 
early  days  proved  even  more  fatal  than  they  occasionally 
did  a  century  or  more  ago,  when  the  proper  precautions 
against  them  were  not  so  well  understood.  The  death 
of  Mondino 's  two  prosectors  in  early  years  would  seem 
to  hint  at  some  such  unfortunate  occurrence. 

As  regards  the  evidence  of  what  the  young  man  had 
accomplished  before  his  untimely  death,  probably  the 
following  quotation,  which  Medici  has  taken  from  one 
of  the  old  chroniclers,  will  give  the  best  idea.  He  said  : 
What  advantage  indeed  might  not  Bologna  have  had 
from  Otto  Agenius  Lustrolanus,  whom  Mondino  had  used 
as  an  assiduous  prosector,  if  he  had  not  been  taken  away 
by  a  swift  and  lamentable  death  before  he  had  com- 
pleted the  sixth  lustrum  of  his  life  !  " 

Further  absolute  proof  that  dissections  were  very  com- 
mon about  the  time  that  Mondino  made  those  which  are 
recorded,  and  the  mention  of  which  has  led  to  the  false 
assumption  as  to  the  rarity  of  dissection,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  legal  prosecution  for  body-snatching,  which  I  have 
already  mentioned  and  which  took  place  within  five 


48  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

years  after  Mondino  made  the  public  demonstrations  in 
dissection  that  are  the  subject  of  discussion.  It  will 
be  conceded  by  everyone  that  such  prosecutions  for  body- 
snatching  are  not  likely  to  occur  when  only  one  or  two 
graves  are  violated  a  year,  but  are  usually  the  result  of 
a  series  of  such  outrages,  which  arouse  the  community 
against  them.  We  prefer  to  give  this  bit  of  history  once 
more  in  the  words  of  Professor  Pilcher,  who  has  argued 
this  whole  case  for  the  frequency  of  dissection  within 
twenty  years  after  the  bull  that  is  supposed  to  have  for- 
bidden it  better  than  anyone  else,  and  whose  knowledge 
of  Mondino  and  his  times  is  such  as  to  make  him  an  au- 
thority on  the  subject.  He  has  no  interest  in  them,  as 
I  have  said,  either  for  or  against  the  Popes.  His  only 
idea  is  to  bring  out  the  real  meaning  of  whatever  data 
we  possess  for  the  history  of  anatomy  and  dissection  at 
this  time. 

"An  instructive  and  interesting  side-light  on  the  con- 
ditions attending  the  study  of  practical  anatomy  in  the 
days  of  Mondino  may  be  found  in  a  record,  still  extant, 
ot  a  legal  procedure  which  occurred  in  Bologna  in  the 
year  1319,  four  years  after  Mondino  had  begun  his  pub- 
lic demonstrations  and  at  a  time  when  Otto  and  Aless- 
andra  were  doubtless  enthusiastically  working  with  him. 
According  to  the  record,  four  students,  three  from  Milan 
and  one  from  Piacenza,  were  accused  of  having  gone  at 
night  time  to  the  cemetery  of  the  church  of  San  Bar- 
nada,  outside  the  San  Felice  gate,  and  to  have  sacrileg- 
iously violated  the  grave  in  which  was  buried  the  body 
of  a  certain  Pasino  who  had  been  hung  on  the  gallows 
near  the  Ponte  di  Reno.  It  was  charged  that  the  stu- 
dents had  taken  up  the  body  and  carried  it  to  the  school 
of  the  parish  of  San  Salvatore,  near  the  pharmacy  of 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  49 

Giacomo  de  Guido,  where  Master  Alberto  (Zancari)  was 
teaching.  There  were  witnesses  who  affirmed  that  they 
had  seen  the  body  of  Pasino  in  the  school  and  the  stu- 
dents and  others  intent  upon  dissecting  it.  It  was  the 
sixth  of  December  when  the  arrests  were  made,  but  the 
final  outcome  of  the  trial  is  not  stated." 

Surely  all  this  must  be  considered  sufficient  evidence 
to  show  that  Pope  Boniface's  bull  neither  forbade  dis- 
section, nor  was  misinterpreted  as  prohibiting  any  prac- 
tice in  connection  with  anatomical  investigation.  It  is 
not  enough  for  President  White,  however,  for  after  the 
publication  of  my  original  article  in  the  Medical  Library 
and  Historical  Journal  on  The  Popes  and  Anatomy,  and 
another  article  on  Pope  John  XXII.  and  the  Supposed 
Bull  against  Chemistry,  President  White  wrote  thus  in 
reply:  "Dr.  Walsh  takes  up  the  decretal  of  Boniface 
VIII. ,  in  1300,  and  endeavors  to  show  that,  so  far  from 
forbidding  dissection,  it  had  quite  a  different  tenor,  and 
that  at  sundry  universities  in  Italy  and  at  the  University 
at  Montpelier,  in  France,  dissection  was  permitted  and 
most  openly  practiced.  This  seems  to  me  very  disin- 
genuous. The  decretal  of  Boniface  was  construed  uni- 
versally as  prohibiting  dissections  for  any  purpose  what- 
ever." 

For  President  White,  then,  the  publication  of  the  text 
of  the  bull  is  only  an  endeavor  to  show  that,  so  far  from 
forbidding  dissection,  it  had  quite  a  different  tenor. 
This  endeavor  seems  to  him  very  disingenuous  (!)  It 
matters  not  what  evidence  there  may  be  for  dissection, 
or  lack  of  evidence  as  to  ecclesiastical  opposition,  the 
decretal  ot  Boniface  was  construed  universally  as  prohib- 
iting any  dissections  for  any  purpose  whatever.  All 
history  must  yield  before  the  reiteration  of  the  assertion 


50  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

that  the  Popes  did  forbid  dissection,  and  that  there  was 
no  anatomy  during  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth centuries,  except  such  as  by  chance,  in  some  way 
or  other,  succeeded  in  evading  the  Church  regulations. 
It  simply  must  have  been  so.  President  White  has  said  it. 
For  anyone  to  deny  it  is  to  question  his  historical  infal- 
libility. Only  those  who  are  disingenuous  will  dare  to 
do  so. 

It  is  true,  he  grants  there  were  some  permits  to  dissect 
given,  but  these  were  wrung  from  the  unwilling  hands 
of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  are  only  proofs  of 
their  opposition,  not  at  all  of  their  toleration  of  dissec- 
tion. There  is  no  limit  to  which  Professor  White  will 
not  go  in  order  to  maintain  his  proposition  that  the  Popes 
did  forbid  anatomy,  and  that  there  was  no  anatomical 
investigation  during  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth centuries.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  paragraph 
from  Professor  White's  answer  which  shows  very  strik- 
ingly one  method  of  arguing  with  regard  to  a  question 
of  major  significance  in  the  history  of  education  as  well 
as  of  science,  and  especially  of  medicine,  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  Comments  on  it  are  entirely  unnecessary : 

"And  now,  as  to  Dr.  Walsh's  statement  that  dissec- 
tion was  permitted  by  Popes  and  ecclesiastical  author- 
ities in  universities.  His  argument  in  the  matter  is  an 
excellent  example  of  Jesuitism.  It  is  true  that  under 
the  pressure  of  the  developing  science  of  medicine,  sun- 
dry civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities  did,  from  time  to 
time,  issue  permits  allowing  an  occasional  dissection,  at 
rare  intervals,  here  and  there  ;  as,  for  example,  the  per- 
mission given  to  the  University  of  Lerida,  in  1391,  to 
dissect  one  dead  criminal  every  three  years,  and  to 
sundry  other  universities  to  dissect  one  or  two  human 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  51 

bodies  each  year.  It  is  a  fact  of  which  we  have  ample 
testimony,  that  Mundinus,  the  great  anatomist  preced- 
ing Vesalius,  only  dissected  three  human  bodies  with  his 
classes  during  his  entire  career.  So  far  from  effectually 
helping  anatomy,  these  permissions  served  really  to 
fasten  the  idea  upon  the  European  mind  that  dissection 
to  any  considerable  extent  by  anatomical  investigators 
ought  not  to  be  allowed,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was 
not  until  Vesalius,  in  spite  of  theological  opposition, 
braved  calumny,  persecution,  and  possibly  death,  that 
this  ecclesiastical  barrier  to  investigation  was  broken 
through. ' '  (Italics  ours. ) 

Since  Professor  White  has  insisted  so  much  on  the  sig- 
nificance of  these  permissions,  a  discussion  of  them  will 
not  be  out  of  place.  There  are  records  of  a  certain  small 
number  of  permissions  to  dissect  having  been  granted 
by  the  Popes  to  various  universities  during  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  centuries.  These  are  so  few,  how- 
ever, that  it  would  seem  that  if  they  represented  the 
only  opportunities  afforded  for  dissection,  then  the  de- 
velopment of  anatomy  must  have  been  much  hampered. 

With  regard  to  this,  it  may  be  said  that  if  the  Popes 
gave  permission  for  dissection,  then  this  practice  was 
not  forbidden  by  them.  Here  is  the  proof  of  it  out  of 
the  mouths  of  those  who  say  the  opposite.  Why  should 
a  permission  be  necessary,  however,  will  be  asked  ? 

At  the  present  moment  such  formal  permissions  are 
required  quite  as  much  in  all  civilized  countries  as  they 
were  during  the  Middle  Ages.  In  certain  parts  of  the 
United  States  a  bond  has  to  be  filed  by  applicants  before 
permission  to  dissect  will  be  given.  Dissection  is  recog- 
nized generally  as  a  practice  that  needs  definite  regu- 
lation. Without  such  regulation  all  sorts  of  abuses 


52  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

would  creep  in.  During  the  Middle  Ages  popular  feel- 
ing was  all  against  dissection.  It  was  difficult,  in  many 
places,  for  the  university  authorities  to  obtain  permis- 
sion for  dissection  from  their  immediate  political  rulers. 
As  a  consequence  of  this  they  reverted  to  the  theory, 
very  generally  accepted  at  that  time,  that  the  university 
was  independent  of  the  political  authorities  of  the  place 
in  which  it  was  situated,  in  educational  matters,  and  an 
appeal  was  made  directly  to  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
for  permission  to  dissect,  as  coming  under  their  juris- 
diction in  education.  They  had  thus  obtained  many 
other  educational  privileges  that  would  not  have  been 
allowed  them  by  municipalities,  and  they  were  success- 
ful also  in  this.  Anyone  who  knows  the  details  of  the 
struggle  of  the  universities  to  maintain  the  rights  of 
their  students  and  faculties  against  the  encroachments 
of  municipal  and  state  authorities,  will  appreciate  how 
much  this  possibility  of  appeal  to  the  Pope  meant  for  the 
universities  of  that  time. 

The  permission  to  dissect  was  only  another,  but  a  very 
striking  example,  of  ecclesiastical  authority  granting 
privileges  to  universities  beyond  those  which  they  could 
have  obtained  from  the  local  governments  under  which 
they  existed.  Such  permissions,  far  from  showing  that 
the  Popes  were  hampering  or  prohibiting  dissection, 
prove,  on  the  contrary,  that  they  were  securing  for  edu- 
cational institutions  what  local  popular  prejudice  would 
not  have  allowed  them.  That  this  is  the  proper  way  to 
view  this  question  will  be  best  appreciated  by  a  review 
of  the  history  of  anatomy  during  the  two  centuries  and 
a  half  in  which  ecclesiastical  authorities  are  said  to  have 
prevented  or  discouraged  its  development.  From  this  it 
will  be  seen  very  clearly  that  the  nearer  to  Rome  the 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  53 

medical  schools  were,  the  more  dissection  was  done  in 
them ;  that  dissection  was  most  common  in  Rome,  at 
least  during  the  latter  part  of  this  period ;  that  the 
golden  age  of  anatomy  developed  most  luxuriantly  in 
Bologna  when  that  was  a  Papal  city,  and  in  Rome  itself  ; 
and  that  in  general  the  Popes  must  be  looked  upon  as 
having  fostered  and  patronized  the  medical  sciences  and 
anatomy  in  every  possible  way,  while  there  is  not  the 
slightest  hint  anywhere  to  be  found  of  the  ecclesiastical 
opposition  that  is  supposed  to  have  dominated  these  cen- 
turies of  medical  history. 

In  concluding  this  chapter  it  has  seemed  worth  while 
to  trace  the  origin  of  the  misinterpretation  of  Pope  Boni- 
face's decretal,  which  makes  it  forbid  dissection  for  ana- 
tomical purposes  as  well  as  the  cutting  up  and  boiling  of 
bodies  in  order  to  facilitate  their  removal  for  long  dis- 
tances for  burial.  Prof.  White  quotes  with  great  confi- 
dence in  the  matter  the  Benedictine  Literary  History  of 
France  as  his  authority,  which  he  declares  to  be  a  Cath- 
olic authority.  Under  ordinary  circumstances,  this 
would  be  quite  sufficient  to  establish  the  fact  that  such 
a  misinterpretation  must  have  taken  place,  for  the  Bene- 
dictines were  extremely  careful  in  such  matters  and 
were  not  likely  to  admit  an  assertion  of  this  kind,  unless 
they  had  good  foundation  for  it.  The  quotation  on 
which  Prof.  White  depends  for  his  declarations  in  the 
matter  is  found  in  the  Sixteenth  Volume  of  the  Histoire 
Litteraire  de  la  France,  which  runs  as  follows : 

' '  But  what  was  to  retard  still  more  (than  the  prohib- 
ition of  surgery  to  the  clergy  mentioned  in  the  preceding 
paragraph)  was  the  very  ancient  prejudice  which  op- 
posed anatomical  dissection  as  sacrilegious.  By  a  decree 
inserted  in  Le  Sexte,  Boniface  VIII.  forbade  the  boiling 


54  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

of  bodies  in  order  to  obtain  skeletons.  Anatomists  were 
obliged  to  go  back  to  Galen  for  information,  and  could 
not  study  the  human  body  directly,  and  consequently 
could  not  advance  the  human  science  of  bodily  health 
and  therapeutics." 

Had  this  been  written  by  the  Benedictines,  there 
would  have  been  every  reason  to  think  that  though 
Boniface's  decretal  itself  did  not  forbid  dissection  it  had 
unfortunately  been  so  misinterpreted.  While  the  His- 
toire  Litteraire  de  la  France,  however,  was  begun  by  the 
Benedictine  Congregation  of  St.  Maur,  their  work,  like 
many  another  magnificent  undertaking  of  the  monks, 
was  interrupted  by  the  French  Revolution.  What  they 
had  accomplished  up  to  this  time  showed  the  necessity 
for  such  work,  and  accordingly  in  the  early  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  a  continuation  of  it  was  undertaken 
by  the  members  of  the  Institute  of  France.  The  Six- 
teenth Volume  from  which  the  quotation  just  cited  comes 
was  mainly  written  by  Pierre  Claude  Francois  Daunou, 
the  French  historian  and  politician.  His  life  had  not 
been  such  as  to  make  him  a  sympathetic  student  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  He  had  been  a  deputy  to  the  Convention, 
1792-1795,  was  elected  the  first  President  of  the  Council 
of  500  in  this  latter  year,  and  became  a  member  of  the 
Tribunate  in  1800.  His  contributions  to  history  were 
made  near  the  close  of  his  life.  While  he  is  usually  con- 
sidered an  authority  in  the  political  details  of  these  cen- 
turies, it  is  easy  to  understand  that  he  was  not  favor- 
ably situated  for  familiarity  with  the  medical  history  of 
these  times. 

Once  it  is  understood  that  the  paragraph  in  question 
was  written  by  M.  Daunou  and  not  by  the  Benedictines, 
its  adventitious  prestige  as  a  Catholic  historical  author- 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  55 

ity,  to  which  we  shall  see  presently  it  has  absolutely  no 
right,  vanishes.  A  word  about  M.  Daunou  will  serve  to 
show  how  carefully  any  declaration  of  his  with  regard 
to  the  Popes  must  be  weighed.  He  belonged  to  that 
French  school  of  Catholics  who  try  to  minimize  in  every 
way  the  influence  of  the  Papacy  in  the  Church,  and  who, 
as  students  of  history  know  very  well,  do  not  hesitate 
even  to  twist  historical  events  to  suit  their  prejudices 
and  give  them  a  significance  detrimental  to  the  Popes. 
This  was  the  principal  purpose  of  Daunou' s  historical 
writing.  There  is  a  little  volume  called  Outlines  of  a 
History  of  the  Court  of  Rome  and  of  the  Temporal  Power 
of  the  Popes,  declared  by  the  translator  to  be  by  Daunou, 
which  was  published  in  Philadelphia  in  1837.  The  Amer- 
ican edition  was  issued  as  a  Protestant  tract,  and  the 
translator  states  frankly  that  M.  Daunou' s  purpose  in 
composing  it  was  to  prove  that  "the  temporal  power  of 
the  Roman  Pontiffs  originated  in  fraud  and  usurpation  ; 
that  its  influence  upon  their  pastoral  ministry  has  been 
to  mar  and  degrade  it,  and  its  continuation  is  dangerous 
to  the  peace  and  the  liberties  of  Europe ;  and  that  its 
constant  influence  to  these  effects  is  to  retard  the  ad- 
vancement of  civilization  and  knowledge. ' '  M.  Daunou' s 
title  for  the  work  as  issued  originally  in  French  was  An 
Historical  Essay  on  the  Temporal  Power  of  the  Popes 
and  on  the  Abuses  which  they  have  made  of  their  Spir- 
itual Ministry.1 

Everything  that  M.  Daunou  has  to  say  with  regard  to 
the  Popes  is  tinged  by  his  political  and  Gallican  preju- 

1  The  time  at  which  this  little  book  was  published  furnishes  the  best  possible  com- 
mentary on  its  purpose.  It  was  originally  issued  in  1810,  the  year  after  Pope  Pius 
VII.  had  been  carried  off  from  Rome,  and  when  Napoleon  was  using  every  effort 
to  discredit  the  Pope  and  bring  about  a  state  of  affairs  in  which  the  Pontiff 
would  be  compelled  to  accept  a  Concordat  that  would  deprive  the  Church  of  many  of 


56  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

dices.  This  is  why  he  states  so  definitely  in  the  Histoire 
Litteraire  de  la  France  that  the  bull  of  Pope  Boniface 
VIII. ,  if  it  did  not  actually  forbid  dissection,  at  least  was 
responsible  for  hampering  the  practice  for  two  centur- 
ies. That  M.  Daunou's  expressions  on  this  subject  have 
been  taken  so  seriously,  however,  is  to  me  at  least  a 
never-ending  source  of  surprise.  He  himself  must  have 
known  nothing  at  all  of  the  history  of  dissection,  while 
those  who  accepted  his  opinion  must  have  carefully 
avoided  consulting  authorities  on  the  history  of  anatomy, 
for  it  is  actually  just  after  this  bull  that  the  history  of 
public  dissection  begins.  It  is  clear  to  me,  then,  that 
this  absurd  assertion  of  M.  Daunou  never  would  have 
been  swallowed  so  readily  only  that  writers  were  over- 
anxious to  find  material  to  use  against  the  Popes  and  the 
Church. 

Daunou  found  this  bull  of  Boniface  an  excellent  op- 
portunity to  discredit  the  Popes  in  their  relations  to 
science.  It  is  true,  the  bull  itself  says  nothing  about 
dissection,  nor  is  there  anything  in  it  that  would  tend  to 
create  even  a  distant  impression  that  it  was  directed 
against  anatomical  preparations  of  any  kind.  We  might 
expect,  then,  that  his  assertion  in  this  matter  would 
have  been  contradicted  at  once  by  some  one  who  would 
read  the  bull.  The  bull  is,  however,  not  easy  to  find  for 
consultation  purposes.  It  does  not  occur,  as  we  have 
said,  in  Le  Sexte  itself,  that  is,  in  the  ordinary  Sixth 
Book  of  Papal  Decretals,  published  by  Boniface  VIII. , 
though  Daunou  quotes  it  as  from  there  and  without  a 

her  former  rights.  It  was  then  really  a  political  pamphlet  meant  to  curry  favor  with 
Napoleon,  and  issued  anonymously,  because  even  Daunou  did  not  care  to  put  hi-  name 
to  it  under  the  circumstances.  This  will  give  a  better  idea  of  how  much  credence  may 
be  given  to  Daunou's  assertions  with  regard  to  the  Popes  of  the  Middle  Ages,  than 
any  reflections  that  we  could  make. 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  57 

hint  as  to  where  it  may  be  really  found.  It  is  in  an  ap- 
pendix to  this  work,  added  after  Boniface's  death.  It 
would  be  rather  difficult,  then,  and  would  require  some 
special  knowledge  and  no  little  patience  on  the  part  of  a 
subsequent  collator  of  historical  sources  to  find  the  bull, 
unless  he  were  determined  on  getting  at  the  bottom  of 
this  whole  question.  As  a  consequence  Daunou's  asser- 
tion has  remained  practically  unchallenged  for  the  better 
part  of  a  century,  though  many  scholars  who  were  famil- 
iar with  Boniface's  sixth  book  have  doubtless  realized 
its  falsity,  but  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  would  not  or- 
dinarily come  across  the  bull  in  their  direct  reading  of 
Boniface's  famous  volume,  would  not  be  in  a  position  to 
contradict  its  misquotation.  If  looked  at  in  this  way, 
Daunou's  passage  in  the  Histoire  Litteraire  would  seem 
to  be  a  deliberate  and  very  clever  and,  unfortunately, 
successful  perversion  of  history. 

Daunou,  who  was  a  deep  student  of  Papal  affairs  and 
whose  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  Papacy  would 
not  be  likely  to  have  missed  so  important  a  detail,  might 
very  well  have  known,  that  about  a  half  a  century  be- 
fore the  time  when  he  wrote  asserting  that  this  bull  of 
Boniface  VIII.  had  prevented  dissection,  someone  who 
had  a  doubt  on  the  subject  asked  the  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities at  Rome,  whether  this  Papal  document  was  to 
be  considered  as  referring  in  any  way  to  the  practice  of 
dissection,  or  the  cutting  up  of  human  bodies  for  ana- 
tomical purposes.  In  reply  to  this  question  Pope  Benedict 
XIV.  made  a  very  direct  answer,  absolutely  in  the  neg- 
ative. This  is  the  only  hint  that  I  know  o±  in  serious 
history  that  Pope  Boniface's  bull  was  ever  considered  to 
have  any  reference  to  dissection  for  anatomical  pur- 
poses. At  the  time  when  Pope  Benedict  XIV.'s  answer 


58  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

was  published  the  Papal  Medical  School  had  been  in  ex- 
istence for  some  five  centuries  and  a  half.  For  about 
two  centuries  and  a  half  it  had  been  distinguished  in  the 
annals  of  medicine,  and  as  we  shall  see  in  the  chapter 
on  The  Papal  Medical  School,  some  of  the  most  distin- 
guished anatomists  of  their  time  had  been  investigating 
and  teaching  by  means  of  dissections,  and  their  demon- 
strations had  been  attended  by  many  of  the  high  eccles- 
iastics, even  many  autopsies  had  been  made  on  Cardinals. 

Pope  Benedict's  reply  is  quoted  in  full  in  Puschmann's 
Handbuch  der  Geschichte  der  Medizin,Vol.  II.,  page  227, 
in  Robert  Ritter  Von  Toply's  article  on  the  History  of 
Anatomy.  It  occurs  in  the  midst  of  an  abundance  of 
material  of  great  historical  importance  which  shows  the 
place  that  the  Popes  occupy  as  patrons  of  anatomy  for 
several  centuries.  Von  Toply  has  no  illusions  with  re- 
gard to  any  supposed  opposition  of  the  Popes  to  medical 
science.  He  even  says,  that  while  the  older  writers 
have  always  told  the  story  of  the  development  of  anat- 
omy as  if  the  Popes  tried  to  prevent  the  study  of  it,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  scarcely  any  evidence  for  this, 
and  copious  evidence  for  their  having  done  much  to  fos- 
ter this  branch  of  medical  science  which  they  consider 
so  important  for  the  healing  of  the  ills  of  mankind.  His 
reference  to  Boniface's  answer  with  regard  to  the  rela- 
tion of  Boniface's  bull  to  dissection  runs  as  follows  : 

"Under  the  heading,  Concerning  the  Dissection  of 
Bodies  in  Public  Institutions  of  Learning,  and  in  reply 
to  the  question  whether  the  bull  of  Boniface  VIII.  for- 
bids the  dissection  of  human  bodies,  Benedict  XIV.  said 
(Institute  64)  : 

"By  the  singular  beneficence  of  God  the  study  of 
medicine  flourished  in  a  very  wonderful  manner  in  this 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  DISSECTION  59 

city  (Rome).  Its  professors  are  known  for  their  su- 
preme talents  to  the  remotest  parts  of  the  earth.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  they  have  greatly  benefi tted  by  the  dili- 
gent labor  which  they  have  devoted  to  dissection.  From 
this  practice  beyond  doubt  they  "have  gained  a  profound 
knowledge  of  their  art  and  a  proficiency  that  has  en- 
abled them  to  give  advice  for  the  benefit  of  the  ailing  as 
well  as  a  skill  in  the  curing  of  disease.  Now  such  dis- 
section of  bodies  is  in  no  way  contrary  to  the  bull  of  Pope 
Boniface.  He  indeed  imposed  the  penalty  of  excommu- 
nication, to  be  remitted  only  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff 
himself,  upon  all  those  who  would  dare  to  disembowel 
the  body  of  any  dead  person  and  either  dismember  it  or 
horribly  cut  it  up,  separating  the  flesh  from  the  bones. 
From  the  rest  of  his  bull,  however,  it  is  clear  that  this 
penalty  was  only  to  be  inflicted  upon  those  who  took 
bodies  already  buried  out  of  their  graves  and  by  an  act 
horrible  in  itself,  cut  them  in  pieces  in  order  that  they 
might  carry  them  elsewhere  and  place  them  in  another 
tomb.  It  is  very  clear,  however,  that  by  this,  the  dis- 
section of  bodies,  which  has  proved  so  necessary  for 
those  exercising  the  profession  of  medicine,  is  by  no 
means  forbidden. " l 

This  whole  subject  of  the  Supposed  Papal  Prohibition 
of  Anatomy  is  typical  of  a  certain  form  of  controversial 
writing  against  the  Church.  A  document  of  some  time 
or  other  from  the  Middle  Ages  is  taken,  twisted  from  its 

1  The  original  Latin  taken  from  Puschmann  runs  thus:  "De  cadaverum  sectione 
facienda  in  publicis  Academiis,  utrum  constitutio  Bonif acii  VIII.  sectioni  humanorum 
cadaverum  adversetur.  Singulari  dei  beneficio  medicinse  studium  in  hac  civitate 
(Roma)  magnopere  floret  cujus  etiam  prof essores  ob  eximiam  virtutem  in  remotissi- 
mis  terras  partibus  commendantur.  Ipsis  sane  maxime  prof  uit,  quod  incidendis  mor- 
tuis  corporibus  diligentem  operam  contulerint,  ex  qua  procul  dubio  praeclaram  artis 
scientiam,  in  consultationibus  obeundis  pro  segrotorum  salute  praestantiam,  morbisque 
curandis  peritiam  consecuti  sunt Porro  haec  membrorum  incisio  nullo 


60  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

original  meaning  and  set  up  as  a  serious  stumbling  block 
to  the  development  of  science  or  education  in  some  way. 
It  is  quoted  confidently  by  some  one  without  much  au- 
thority. Others  who  are  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  have 
such  an  objection  to  urge  against  the  Papacy,  take  it  up 
eagerly,  do  not  look  it  up  in  the  original,  absolutely  fail 
to  consider  the  circumstances  in  which  it  was  issued, 
and  then  spread  it  broadcast.  Of  course  it  is  accepted 
by  unthinking  readers,  whose  prejudices  lead  them  to 
believe  that  this  is  what  was  to  be  expected  anyhow.  It 
maybe  that  history,  as  is  the  case  in  anatomy,  absolutely 
contradicts  the  assertion.  That  makes  no  difference. 
History  is  ignored  and  treatises  are  written  showing 
how  much  science  would  have  developed  only  for  Papal 
opposition,  by  people  who  know  nothing  at  all  about  the 
real  story  of  the  development  of  science.  The  real  his- 
tory of  anatomy,  showing  very  clearly  how  much  was 
done  for  the  science  by  the  Popes  and  ecclesiastics,  will 
be  told  in  the  following  chapters. 


modo  adversatur  Bonifacii  Institution!.  .  .  .  Die  quidem  poenam  excommunica- 
tionis  indicit  Pontifici  solo  remittendam,  iis  omnibus  qui  audeant  cuiuscumque  de- 
f  uncti  corpus  exenterare,  ac  illud  membratim  vel  in  f  rustra  immaniter  concidere  ab 
ossibus  tegumentum  carnis  excutere.  Tamen  ex  reliquis  ejusdem  constitutionis  parti- 
bus  clare  deprehenditur,  hanc  poenam  illis  infligi  qui  sepulta  corpora  e  tumulis  eru- 
entes  ipsa  nefario  scelere  in  frustra  secabant  ut  alio  def errent,  alioque  sepulchro  col- 
locarent.  Quamobrem  membrorum  incisio  minime  interdicitur,  quae  adeo  necessaria 
est  medicinae  facultatem  exercentibus." 


THE  STORY  OF  ANATOMY  DOWN  TO  THE 
RENAISSANCE. 

We  have  seen  that  the  supposed  prohibition  of  anat- 
omy by  the  Popes  has  no  existence  in  reality.  In  spite 
of  this  fact,  which  it  was  easy  for  anyone  to  ascertain 
who  wished  to  consult  the  documents  asserted  to  forbid, 
a  number  of  historical  writers  have  insisted  on  finding 
religious  or  ecclesiastical,  or  theological,  opposition  to 
anatomical  studies.  Professor  White  has  been  most 
emphatic  in  his  assertions  in  this  regard.  He  admits 
that  the  supposed  bull  of  prohibition  had  quite  a  differ- 
ent purport,  yet  he  still  continued  to  assert  its  connec- 
tion with  the  failure  of  anatomy  to  develop  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  This  presumed  failure  of  anatomy  during 
the  Middle  Ages  is  a  myth.  It  continues  to  secure  cre- 
dence only  in  the  minds  of  those  who  know  nothing  of 
the  history  of  medical  science  during  the  thirteenth, 
fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  centuries  and  who  have  not 
consulted  the  serious  histories  of  medicine  that  treat  of 
this  time,  but  flourishes  vigorously  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  have  a  definite  purpose  in  making  out  a  story  of 
theological  or  Church  opposition  to  science  in  general. 

To  counteract  the  false  impression  that  has  gained 
such  wide  acceptance  in  this  matter,  it  has  seemed  ad- 
visable, in  order  to  settle  the  question  definitely  once 
and  for  all,  to  trace  the  history  of  anatomical  science 
from  its  beginning  in  the  Middle  Ages  down  to  modern 

(61) 


62  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

times.  It  will  not  be  hard  to  show  that  there  was  a  con- 
stant development  and  an  unfailing  interest  in  this  sub- 
ject. This  can  be  understood  even  more  clearly  from  the 
story  of  the  development  of  surgery  in  the  Middle  Ages 
and  its  relations  to  anatomy  than  from  the  history  of 
anatomy  itself.  As  is  well  known,  materials  with  re- 
gard to  practical  and  applied  science  interest  men  more 
at  all  times,  and  documents  with  regard  to  them  are 
more  likely  to  be  preserved,  and  so  the  history  of  sur- 
gery is  very  full,  while  the  history  of  anatomy  may  prove 
not  quite  so  satisfactory.  It  is  true  of  all  sciences,  that 
there  are  periods  when  they  have  much  less  attraction 
than  at  other  times,  and  the  success  of  investigators  and 
original  workers  is  not  always  the  same.  As  in  nearly 
everything  else,  the  real  advances  in  all  science  come 
when  genius  makes  its  mark,  and  not  merely  because  a 
large  number  of  men  happen  to  be  interested  in  the 
subject.  This  will  be  found  as  true  in  anatomy  as  in 
other  sciences,  and  so  there  are  periods  when  not  much 
is  doing,  but  nowhere  is  there  a  trace  of  ecclesiastical 
opposition  to  account  for  these  variations  of  interest. 

There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  there  was  much  popular 
opposition  to  the  practice  of  dissection  in  the  Middle 
Ages ;  that  has  existed  at  all  times  in  the  world's  his- 
tory. It  was  very  pronounced  among  the  old  Pagans  in 
Rome  as  well  as  in  Greece,  and  it  prevented  anatomical 
study  to  a  very  great  degree.  It  continued  to  exist  in 
modern  times  until  almost  the  present  generation.  In- 
deed, it  has  not  yet  entirely  disappeared,  as  any  physi- 
cian who  has  tried  to  secure  autopsies  on  interesting 
cases  knows  very  well.  The  New  York  Academy  of 
Medicine  is  only  a  little  over  a  half  century  old,  and  yet 
nearly  every  one  of  its  early  presidents  had  thrilling  ex- 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  gg 

periences  in  body-snatching  as  a  young  man,  because  no 
proper  provision  for  the  supplying  of  anatomical  mate- 
rial had  as  yet  been  made  by  law,  and  bodies  had  to  be 
obtained.  The  feeling  of  objection  to  having  the  bodies 
of  friends  anatomized  is  natural  and  not  due  to  religion. 
It  exists  quite  as  strongly  among  the  ignorant  who  have 
no  religion  as  among  the  religiously  inclined.  It  has  not 
disappeared  among  the  educated  classes  of  our  own 
time,  religious  or  irreligious.  If  this  is  borne  in  mind, 
the  history  of  the  development  of  anatomy  will  be  easier 
to  understand. 

The  first  definite  evidence  in  modern  history  for  the 
existence  of  the  practice  of  dissection  is  a  famous  law 
of  the  German  Emperor,  Frederick  II.,  from  the  first 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century.  This  law  was  promul- 
gated for  the  two  Sicilies,  that  is,  for  Southern  Italy  and 
Sicily  proper,  very  probably  in  the  year  1240.  It  has 
often  been  vaguely  referred  to,  but  its  actual  signifi- 
cance can  only  be  understood  from  the  terms  of  the  law 
itself,  which  has  been  literally  translated  by  Von  Toply 
in  his  Studien  Zur  Geschichte  der  Anatomie  in  Im  Mit- 
telalter.1  The  paragraph  with  regard  to  dissection  runs 
as  follows : 

"As  an  enactment  that  will  surely  prove  beneficial  to 
health,  we  decree  that  no  surgeon  will  be  allowed  to 
practice,  in  case  he  has  not  a  written  testimonial,  which 
he  must  present  to  the  teachers  in  the  medical  faculty, 
that  he  has  for  at  least  a  year  applied  himself  to  that 
department  of  medicine  which  is  concerned  with  the 
teaching  and  practice  of  surgery,  and  that  he  has,  above 
all,  learned  the  anatomy  of  the  human  body  in  this  man- 
ner, and  that  he  is  fully  competent  in  this  department 

iDeuticke  Leipzig  und  Wien.  1898. 


£4  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

of  medicine,  without  which  neither  surgery  can  be  un- 
dertaken with  success  nor  sufferers  cured."1 

Such  a  regulation,  as  pointed  out  by  Professor  Pilcher 
in  an  article  on  the  early  history  of  dissection,2  and  as 
we  know  by  modern  experience,  does  not  come  into  force 
as  a  rule  before  the  actual  practice  of  what  is  prescribed, 
has  been  for  some  time  the  custom  and  its  usefulness 
proved  by  the  results  attained.  It  seems  very  probable, 
then,  that  even  at  this  early  day  the  Emperor  Frederick 
was  only  making  into  a  law  what  had  been  at  least  a 
custom  before  this  time.  Lest  anyone  should  think  that 
this  is  a  far-fetched  assumption,  certain  other  para- 
graphs of  this  law,  which  show  very  definitely  the  high 
degree 'to  which  the  development  of  medical  teaching 
had  reached,  must  be  recalled.  Frederick  declared  that 
medicine  could  only  be  learned  if  there  was  a  proper 
groundwork  of  logic.  Only  after  three  years  devoted  to 
logic,  then,  under  which  term  is  included  the  grammar 
and  philosophy  of  an  ordinary  undergraduate  course, 
could  a  man  take  up  the  study  of  medicine.  After  three 
years  devoted  to  medicine,  to  which  it  is  again  specific- 
ally declared  another  year  must  be  added  if  surgery 
were  to  be  practiced,  a  man  might  be  given  his  degree 
in  medicine,  but  must  spend  a  subsequent  full  year  in 
the  practical  study  of  medicine  under  the  supervision  of 
an  experienced  physician. 

The  law  further  decreed  definite  punishments  for  the 
practice  of  medicine  without  due  warrant  and  violation 
of  its  regulations,  and  also  regulated  the  practice  of 
apothecaries.  It  is  rather  interesting  to  find  that  these 

1  The  complete  text  of  this  law,  which  is  a  marvelous  anticipation  of  all  our  efforts 
for  the  regulation  of  the  practice  of  medicine  down  even  to  the  present  day,  will  be 
found  in  the  appendix. 

2  The  Mondino  Myth,  Medical  Library  and  Historical  Journal,  1906. 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  65 

were  forbidden  to  share  their  profits  with  physicians, 
and  the  physicians  themselves  were  not  allowed  to  dis- 
tribute their  own  medicines.  In  a  word,  practically  every 
one  of  the  problems  in  the  practice  of  medicine  which 
medical  societies  are  trying  to  solve  at  the  present  mo- 
ment, were  also  occupying  the  attention  of  the  civil  au- 
thorities about  seven  centuries  ago.  Anyone  who  reads 
this  law  will  not  be  loath  to  believe  that  it  represents 
the  culmination  of  a  series  of  efforts  to  regulate  medical 
practice,  and  especially  medical  education,  and  that  it 
was  not  merely  a  chance  legal  utterance  that  happened 
to  touch  a  single  important  question  for  the  first  time. 
One  of  the  paragraphs  of  the  law  even  contains  some 
clauses  that  would  prevent  fake  medical  schools  and 
that  establishes  a  board  of  medical  examiners.  This 
consisted  of  certain  state  officials  and  some  professors  of 
the  art  of  medicine.  In  a  word,  medical  education  had 
reached  a  high  grade  of  development,  and  medical  prac- 
tice was  legally  established  on  a  high  plane  of  profes- 
sional dignity. 

Salerno  had  already  enjoyed  a  high  reputation  as  a 
medical  school  for  more  than  two  centuries  when  Fred- 
erick 's  law  was  promulgated.  It  is  true  that  we  have 
no  definite  records  of  dissections  done  in  the  school.  If 
these  were  not  an  uncommon  occurrence,  however,  but 
came  as  did  dissections  later  on,  quite  as  a  matter  of 
course,  the  absence  of  such  records,  when  we  recall  how 
liable  to  destruction  were  the  meagre  accounts  of  the 
university  transactions  of  the  time  during  the  long 
period  that  has  intervened  and  because  of  the  many 
vicissitudes  they  were  liable  to,  is  not  surprising.  Dur- 
ing the  century  following  this  decree  there  seems  to  be 
no  doubt  that  dissections  were  done  regularly,  though 


66  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

perhaps  not  very  frequently  from  our  modern  stand- 
point, at  Salerno.  Salerno,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  chap- 
ter on  The  Papal  Medical  School,  was  always  closely  in 
touch  with  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  especially 
with  the  Papacy.  There  was  no  hint  of  friction  of  any 
kind,  either  before  or  after  this  law  of  Frederick's.  The 
question  of  ecclesiastical  interference  with  dissection 
does  not  seem  to  have  arisen  at  all,  much  less  to  have 
proved  an  obstacle  to  the  development  of  medical  sci- 
ence. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  center 
of  interest  in  anatomy  and  the  matter  of  dissections 
shifts  to  Bologna.  We  have  already  discussed  the  ques- 
tion whether  Mondino  was  the  first  to  do  public  anato- 
mies, and  as  to  whether  he  performed  only  the  few  that 
by  a  narrow  misunderstanding  of  certain  of  his  own 
words  have  sometimes  been  ascribed  to  him.  Professor 
Pilcher,  in  the  article  The  Mondino  Myth,  already  cited, 
is  of  the  opinion,  and  gives  excellent  reasons  for  it,  that 
Taddeo,  the  great  Bolognese  physician  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  who  was  Mondino' s  master,  had  done  at  least 
some  dissections  in  Bologna.  Personally  I  have  long  felt 
sure  that  Taddeo  or  Thaddeus,  as  he  is  sometimes  called 
in  the  Latin  form  of  his  name,  did  not  a  few,  but  a  num- 
ber of  dissections. 

Professor  Pilcher 's  account  of  him  does  not  exaggerate 
his  merits.  I  may  say  that  he  was  one  of  the  great  Papal 
physicians  of  whom  we  shall  have  more  to  tell  hereafter. 

"  Any  comprehensive  attempt  to  trace  the  real  influ- 
ences to  which  was  due  so  great  a  step  as  a  return  to 
the  practice  of  dissections  of  the  human  body,  seems  to 
me  must  be  very  defective  if  it  failed  to  take  into  con- 
sideration the  influence  of  such  a  man  as  Thaddeus  (Ital- 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  57 

ian  Taddeo) .  That  he  was  able  to  impress  himself  in  the 
way  in  which  history  records  that  he  did,  both  upon  the 
general  public  and  upon  the  scholastic  foundations  of 
Bologna,  shows  a  strength  of  character  and  a  mastery 
of  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the  moment  in  the  fields  of 
science  and  philosophy  which  made  him  a  master  and  an 
inspirer.  If  he  is  to  be  considered  in  his  proper  histori- 
cal light,  as  one  who  declares  that  the  knowledge  of 
the  structure  of  the  human  body  to  a  most  minute  de- 
gree is  the  foundation  upon  which  all  rational  medicine 
and  surgery  must  be  built,  then  it  is  impossible  to  exag- 
gerate the  importance  of  the  pivotal  moment  when,  in 
the  development  of  science,  the  human  body  began  to 
be  anatomized.  Nor  is  any  fault  to  be  found  with  the 
custom  which  has  crowned  with  the  laurels  of  universal 
appreciation  the  names  of  those  men  who  began  and 
who  continued  anatomical  study,  who  vulgarized  the 
practice  of  dissection. 

' '  In  my  own  investigations  and  reflections  upon  the 
conditions  which  led  up  to  this  happy  renewal  of  scien- 
tific search  into  the  composition  of  the  body  of  man,  it 
has  seemed  to  me  that  writers  have  hitherto  fallen  short 
of  tracing  through  to  its  ultimate  source,  the  earlier 
spirit  of  enthusiasm  for  knowledge,  of  insight  into  the 
problems  of  disease,  and  of  contempt  for  traditionary 
shackles,  to  the  influence  of  which,  as  shown  by  the 
master,  Taddeo,  the  latter  work  of  the  pupil,  Mondino, 
was  in  great  measure  due." 

Medici,  in  his  History  of  the  School  of  Anatomy  at 
Bologna,1  quotes  Sarti  on  The  Distinguished  Professors 
of  the  University  of  Bologna  for  proof  of  Taddeo 's  fam- 
iliarity with  dissection.  Von  Toply  does  not  think  that 

1  Medici  Compendio  Storico  Delia  Scuola  Anatomica  de  Bolog^ia,  Bologna,  1857. 


68  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

i 

this  quotation  is  enough  absolutely  to  prove  that  Taddeo 
had  done  dissections,  yet  it  would  be  hard  to  understand 
it  unless  some  such  interpretation  is  made.  Taddeo  was 
asked  to  decide  a  medico-legal  question  with  regard  to 
a  pregnant  woman.  He  refused,  however,  with  a  mod- 
esty that  might  well  be  commended  to  medico-legal  ex- 
perts of  more  modern  times,  to  answer  the  question 
decisively,  because  he  had  never  made  a  dissection  of  a 
pregnant  woman.  Sarti  argues  that  it  is  evident  from 
this  that  he  had  dissected  other  bodies  more  easy  to  ob- 
tain than  those  of  pregnant  women,  or  else  that  he  had 
had  the  opportunity  to  make  observations  on  them  when 
dissected  by  others. 

Certain  of  Taddeo' s  contemporaries  must  have  had  the 
incentive  of  his  example  to  help  them  to  a  knowledge  of 
human  anatomy,  for  they  surely  could  not  have  accom- 
plished all  that  they  did  in  surgery  without  experience 
in  dissection,  yet  Taddeo  was  looked  up  to  as  a  master 
by  all  of  them. 

Anyone  who  has  read  the  contributions  to  surgery  of 
William  of  Salicet  and  his  great  pupil  Lanfranc,  even  if 
only  what  we  give  with  regard  to  them  in  our  chapter 
on  Surgery  during  the  Middle  Ages,  cannot  but  be  im- 
pressed with  the  idea  that  they  must  have  done  human 
dissections.  They  do  not  mention  this  fact  explicitly, 
but  portions  of  their  surgical  works  are  taken  up  with 
the  consideration  of  applied  anatomy.  They  discuss  the 
relations  of  various  structures  to  one  another,  especially 
with  reference  to  the  surgery  of  them.  Von  Toply,  in 
his  Studies  on  the  History  of  Anatomy  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  says  that  the  anatomies  written  before  William's 
chapters  on  applied  anatomy,  were  most  of  them  purely 
theoretic  discussions  meant  to  be  guides  for  internal 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  59 

medicine,  or  else  they  were  very  short  directions  for 
those  who  undertook  the  practical  work  of  the  dismem- 
berment of  bodies,  usually,  however,  with  reference  to 
animals  rather  than  to  human  bodies.  In  William  of 
Salicet  we  encounter,  he  says,  for  the  first  time  a  treat- 
ise on  anatomy  made  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  its 
application  to  practical  surgery.  Everywhere  William 
gives  hints  for  surgical  operations  with  special  reference 
to  the  anatomical  relations. 

Puccinotti  quotes  from  William  of  Salicet' s  surgery, 
written  about  1270,  a  passage  that  shows  how  familiar 
this  surgeon  must  have  been  with  dissection.  The 
nephew  of  Count  Pallavicini  received  an  arrow  wound 
in  the  jugular  vein  and  died  within  an  hour.  During  his 
death  agony  he  suffered  from  a  peculiar  form  of  rattle 
in  his  throat.  It  was  thought  that  this  might  be  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  arrow  had  been  poisoned.  William  was 
called  in  to  decide  this  question,  and  found  that  there 
was  nothing  responsible  for  his  death  except  the  wound 
itself.  He  describes  how  he  found  the  blood  in  the  lungs 
and  in  the  heart,  and  considers  that  the  conditions  that 
were  present  were  due  to  the  wound.  Von  Toply  has 
suggested  that  William  would  have  given  more  details 
had  he  actually  examined  these  organs,  but  when  the 
autopsy  report  is  negative,  such  descriptive  details  are 
not  usual  even  at  the  present  time.  If  he  had  found 
reason  for  thinking  that  there  was  poison  in  the  case,  a 
careful  description  of  the  other  organs  would  be  neces- 
sary. The  fact,  however,  that  he  was  asked  to  decide 
such  a  question,  would  seem  to  indicate  that  he  was  sup- 
posed to  have  a  knowledge  of  the  normal  appearances  of 
human  tissues  when  examined  by  dissection. 

In  everything  else  Lanfranc  went  farther  than  his 


70  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

master  William,  and  he  did  so  also  in  anatomy.  Some 
of  the  details  of  his  work  will  be  found  in  our  chapter 
on  Surgery  in  the  Middle  Ages.  He  could  not  have  been 
able  to  give  the  detailed  instructions  that  he  has  for  the 
treatment  of  every  portion  of  the  .body  only  that  he  knew 
them  by  actual  contact  in  the  cadaver  as  well  as  the  pa- 
tient. His  outlook  upon  scientific  medicine  and  surgery 
would  satisfy  even  the  most  exacting  of  modern  experi- 
mental scientists.  The  famous  aphorism  of  his  runs  as 
follows :  "  Every  science  which  depends  on  operation  is 
greatly  strengthened  by  experience. "  More  than  any- 
thing else,  however,  surgery  owes  to  Lanf ranc  the  dis- 
tinct advantage  that  he  carried  into  the  West  as  far  as 
Paris,  the  methods  which  had  come  into  existence  in 
Italy,  and  were  ever  after  to  prove  a  precious  heritage 
in  the  great  French  University.  As  Salicet's  work  was 
carried  on  by  Lanfranc,  at  least  as  well  was  Lanfranc's 
work  further  advanced  by  his  pupil  and  successor  in  the 
chair  of  surgery,  Henri  de  Monde ville.  This  subject  of 
surgical  development  will  be  treated  in  the  chapter  on 
Surgery  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Here  it  is  introduced  only 
to  emphasize  the  opportunity  there  must  have  been  for 
anatomical  study  through  dissection  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  or  these  men  would  not  have  made  the  marvel- 
ous progress  they  actually  accomplished  in  this  depart- 
ment. 

With  regard  to  Mondino,  Taddeo's  successor  at  Bo- 
logna, enough  has  been  said  already  in  the  preceding 
chapter.  About  this  time,  however,  very  definite  evi- 
dence begins  to  accumulate  of  the  frequent  practice  of 
dissection.  Roth,  whose  life  of  Vesalius  is  a  standard 
work  in  the  history  of  anatomy,  has  summed  up  most  of 
what  we  know  with  regard  to  dissections  in  the  early 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  71 

part  of  the  fourteenth  century,  in  his  chapter  on  Dissec- 
tion Before  Vesalius's  Time.  Roth's  work  is  well  known 
and  is  frequently  referred  to  in  Dr.  White's  History  of 
the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology.  There  can  be 
no  question,  then,  but  that  in  taking  what  Roth  has  to 
say  I  shall  be  quoting  from  a  work  with  regard  to  which 
there  can  be  no  hint  even  of  partiality.  Roth  himself 
was  a  Swiss,  with  no  leaning  toward  the  Church.  There 
are  certain  portions  of  his  book,  indeed,  in  which  he  is 
inclined  not  to  allow  that  the  Church  did  as  much  for 
education  in  these  times  as  she  actually  did.  His  study 
of  the  rise  of  anatomy  can  be  accepted  with  absolute  as- 
surance, that  it  is  at  least  not  written  from  the  stand- 
point of  one  who  wants  to  make  the  situation  with  re- 
gard to  anatomy  more  favorable  than  it  actually  was 
during  the  fourteenth  century,  for  the  sake  of  showing 
any  lack  of  opposition  on  the  part  of  ecclesiastics. 

Some  of  the  material  that  Roth  has  made  use  of  has 
already  been  referred  to  in  the  preceding  chapter,  but  it 
has  seemed  proper  to  repeat  it  here  because  this  gives  a 
connected  account  from  a  definite  authority  in  the  his- 
tory of  medicine,  and  especially  of  anatomy,  with  regard 
to  the  century  immediately  following  the  promulgation  of 
Boniface's  bull.  Besides,  it  gives  an  opportunity  for  such 
comments  on  various  features  of  the  history  of  anatomy, 
as  he  details  it,  as  will  bring  out  the  significance  of  his 
remarks.  His  account  will  make  it  very  clear  that,  far 
from  the  Papal  bull  in  question  having  been  universally 
construed  as  prohibiting  dissections,  as  Dr.  White  says 
it  was,  it  never  entered  into  the  minds  of  medieval  anat- 
omists to  consider  it  as  having  any  such  signification. 
The  bull  was  never  thought  of  in  that  sense  at  all.  It 
does  not  refer  to  anatomy  or  dissection  and  it  never  had 


72  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

any  place  in  the  history  of  anatomy  until  dragged  into 
it  without  warrant  by  Daunou  and  other  nineteenth  cen- 
tury writers.  Roth  says : 

"In  the  pre-Vesalian  period  the  dissection  of  the  hu- 
man body  was  practiced,  according  to  the  terms  of  Fred- 
erick's law,  for  the  instruction  of  those  about  to  become 
physicians  and  surgeons.  The  natural  place  for  this 
school  anatomy— for  a  dissection  was  called  anatomia, 
or,  erroneously,  anatomia  publica— was  at  the  universities 
and  the  medical  schools.  Apart  from  teaching  institu- 
tions, however,  public  anatomies  were  held  in  Strasburg 
and  in  Venice.  Their  purpose  was  the  instruction  of  the 
practicing  medical  personnel  of  these  towns.  Dissections 
which  were  not  made  for  general  instruction  were  called 
private  anatomies.  They  were  performed  for  the  benefit 
of  a  few  physicians,  or  students,  or  magistrates,  or  art- 
ists. Private  anatomies  began  to  have  special  impor- 
tance only  toward  the  end  of  the  pre-Vesalian  period 
(this  would  be  about  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  and  the 
first  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century) .  It  is  a  play  of 
chance  that  the  first  historical  reference  to  a  dissection 
concerns  a  private  anatomy,  one  undertaken  for  the  pur- 
pose of  making  a  legal  autopsy.  This  was  made  in  Bo- 
logna in  the  year  1302  (two  years  after  the  decretal  sup- 
posed to  forbid  dissection).  A  certain  Azzelino  died 
with  unexpected  suddenness,  after  his  physicians  had 
visited  him  once.  A  magistrate  suspected  poison  and 
commissioned  two  physicians  and  three  surgeons  to  de- 
termine the  cause  of  death.  It  was  found  that  death 
resulted  from  natural  causes.  (As  I  have  said,  it 
would  appear  that  this  was  not  an  unusual  procedure, 
for  unless  medical  autopsies  had  been  done  before,  it 
does  not  seem  probable  that  this  method  of  deter- 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  73 

mining  the  cause  of  death  would  have  been  so  readily 
taken  up. ) 

'  *  Thirteen  years  later  there  is  an  account  of  the  dis- 
section of  two  female  bodies,  in  January  and  March  of 
the  year  1315,  performed  by  Mundinus."  (We  have  al- 
ready seen  that  the  fact  that  the  two  female  bodies 
should  be  especially  mentioned,  though  taken  by  some 
historians  of  medicine  to  indicate  that  Mundinus  had 
done  but  few  dissections,  will  not  stand  such  an  inter- 
pretation, in  the  light  of  the  evidence  that  he  had  dis- 
sected many  male  bodies  at  least,  as  his  text-book  of 
anatomy  indeed  makes  very  clear.  These  two  dissec- 
tions of  females  happened  only  to  have  special  features 
that  made  them  noteworthy.)  "A  few  years  later 
(1319)  there  is  a  remarkable  document  which  tells  the 
story  of  body-snatching  for  dissecting  purposes. "  (This 
would  seem  to  be  sufficient  of  itself  to  show  that  a 
number  of  dissections  were  being  done,  and,  indeed, 
as  I  have  already  said,  Rashdall,  in  his  History  of  the 
Universities,  states  that,  according  to  the  University 
statutes  teachers  were  bound  to  dissect  such  bodies  as 
students  brought  to  them. )  Roth  concludes  with  the 
words  (italics  are  mine) :  "  These  are  a  few,  but  weighty 
testimonies  for  the  zeal  with  which  Bologna  pursued  anat- 
omy in  the  fourteenth  century."  (I  may 'add  that  all  of 
these  concern  the  twenty  years  immediately  following 
Pope  Boniface's  supposed  prohibition.) 

Nor  was  the  custom  of  making  dissections  any  less 
active  during  the  rest  of  the  half  century  after  the  time 
when,  if  we  are  to  believe  Professor  White,  the  decree  of 
Boniface  had  been  universally  interpreted  to  forbid  it. 
In  a  note  to  his  history  of  dissection  during  this  period 
in  Bologna,  Roth  says  :  "Without  doubt  the  passage  in 


74  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Guy  de  Chauliac  which  tells  of  having  very  often  (mul- 
titoties,  many  times,  is  the  exact  word)  seen  dissections 
must  be  considered  as  referring  to  Bologna. "  This  pas- 
sage runs  as  follows :  ' '  My  master,  Bertruccius,  con- 
ducted the  dissection  very  often  after  the  following  man- 
ner :  The  dead  body  having  been  placed  upon  a  bench, 
he  used  to  make  four  lessons  on  it.  First,  the  nutri- 
tional portions  were  treated,  because  they  are  so  likely 
to  become  putrified.  In  the  second,  he  demonstrated 
the  spiritual  members ;  in  the  third,  the  animate  mem- 
bers ;  in  the  fourth,  the  extremities. "  (Guy  de  Chauliac 
was  at  Bologna  studying  under  Bertruccius  just  before 
the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  It  is  evident 
beyond  all  doubt,  from  what  he  says,  that  dissections 
were  quite  common.  This  is  during  the  first  fifty  years 
after  the  decree.  I  shall  show  a  little  later  that  there 
are  records  of  dissections  during  the  second  half  of  this 
century.  Roth,  however,  goes  on  to  tell  next  of  the  fif- 
teenth century.) 

Roth  says  nothing  about  the  decree  of  Boniface  VIII. , 
nor  of  any  possible  effect  that  it  had  upon  anatomy. 
The  real  historian,  of  course,  does  not  mention  things 
that  have  not  happened.  Roth  confesses,  as  I  have  said, 
that  he  takes  the  material  for  his  sketch  of  anatomy  be- 
fore Vesalius's  time  from  Corradi.1  Corradi  being  an 
Italian,  and  knowing  of  the  slander  with  regard  to  the 
Papal  decree,  explicitly  denies  it.  Surely,  here  is  ma- 
terial enough  to  convince  anyone  that  all  that  Professor 
White  has  said  with  regard  to  the  supposed  effect  of  the 
misinterpretation  of  Boniface's  decree  is  without  foun- 
dation in  the  history  of  anatomy.  Within  twenty  years 

1  Corradi  Dello  Studio  e  dell'  Insegnamento  dell'  Anatomia  in  Italia  nel  Medio  Evo 
ed  in  parte  del  Cinquecento,  Padova,  1873. 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  75 

after  the  bull  was  issued  dissection  was  practiced  to  such 
an  extent,  that  body-snatching  became  so  common  that 
there  were  prosecutions  for  it,  and  public  dissections 
seem  to  have  been  held  every  year  in  the  universities  of 
of  Italy  during  most  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

De  Renzi l  gives  an  interesting  account  of  the  methods 
by  which  material  was  obtained  for  dissection  purposes 
before  governments  made  any  special  provision  for  this 
purpose.  Naturally,  the  rifling  of  graves  was  resorted  to 
by  students  intensely  interested  in  the  subject  of  anat- 
omy. The  first  criminal  prosecution  for  body-snatching 
on  record  is  in  1319,  when  some  students  brought  a  body 
to  one  Master  Albert,  a  lecturer  in  medicine  at  the  Uni- 
versity at  Bologna,  and  he  dissected  it  for  them.  At 
this  time,  according  to  the  statutes  of  the  university, 
teachers  of  anatomy  were  bound  to  make  a  dissection  if 
the  students  supplied  the  body.  The  whole  party  were 
brought  to  trial  for  this  offence,  though  they  do  not  seem 
to  have  suffered  any  severe  penalty  for  their  violation  of 
the  laws.  At  this  time,  according  to  De  Renzi,  there 
was  a  rage  for  dissection  and  many  bodies  were  yearly 
obtained  surreptitiously  for  the  purpose. 

With  regard  to  the  bodies  of  condemned  criminals, 
people  began  to  countenance  the  procedure,  and  while 
unwilling  as  yet  to  give  them  freely,  allowed  the  bodies 
to  be  taken.  Corradi,  quoted  by  Puschmann,  says  "that 
laws  against  the  desecration  of  graves,  without  being 
abolished,  became  a  dead  letter.  The  authorities  inter- 
fered only  if  decided  violence  had  been  used  or  a  great 
scandal  raised.  Such  consequences  were  likely  to  follow 
only  if,  in  the  ardor  of  their  enthusiasm  for  anatomical 
knowledge,  students  rifled  the  graves  of  well-known 

!De  Renzi  Storia  della  Medicina  in  Italia,  Napoli.  1845-49,  Vol.  II.,  p.  247. 


76  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

persons  or  took  the  bodies  of  those  whose  relatives  dis- 
covered the  desecration  and  proceeded  against  the  ma- 
rauders by  legal  measures. " 

At  the  Italian  universities  after  the  middle  of  the  four- 
teenth century  there  is  abundant  evidence  for  perfect 
freedom  with  regard  to  dissection.  We  have  already 
shown  by  our  quotation  from  Roth  that  Bertrucci  was 
very  active  in  dissection  work  and  did  many  public  dis- 
sections. He  was  followed  by  Pietro  di  Argelata,  who 
died  toward  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century.  These 
men  followed  Mondino  in  the  chair  of  anatomy  at  Bo- 
logna, and  Julius  Pagel,  in  his  chapter  on  Anatomy  and 
Physiology  in  Puschmann's  Handbuch  der  Geschichte 
der  Medizin  (Vol.  L,  p.  707),  says  that  "the  successors 
of  Mondino  were  in  a  position,  owing  to  the  gradual  en- 
lightenment of  the  spirit  of  the  time  and  the  general 
realization  of  the  importance  of  anatomy  as  well  as  the 
fostering  liberality  of  the  authorities,  to  make  regular, 
systematic  dissections  of  the  human  body."  This  would 
bring  us  down,  then,  to  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury. 

To  return  now  to  Roth,  who  takes  up  the  next  century. 
He  says : 

"  For  the  fifteenth  century,  the  university  statutes  of 
Bologna  for  the  year  1405  furnish  many  sources  of  in- 
formation. There  is  a  special  division  which  is  concerned 
with  the  annual  anatomy  or  dissection  that  had  to  be 
made  and  the  selection  of  the  persons  to  be  present,  the 
payment  of  the  expenses  and  other  details.  An  addition 
to  the  statutes,  made  in  the  year  1442,  determines  the 
arrangement  of  the  delivery  of  the  body  from  the  city 
to  the  university  authorities.  Every  year  two  bodies, 
one  male  and  one  female,  must  be  provided  for  the  med- 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  77 

ical  school  dissections.  In  default  of  a  female  body,  a 
second  male  body  was  to  be  provided.  In  the  presence 
of  such  detailed  regulations,  the  absence  almost  entirely 
of  details  as  to  the  actual  performance  of  dissections  can 
mean  very  little.  Bologna  reached  its  highest  develop- 
ment as  a  medical  school  at  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century  when  Alexander  Achillinus  and  Jacob 
Berengarius  had  charge  of  the  public  dissections  there. 
Of  these  I  shall  speak  later."  (All  this  is  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Bologna,  where  ecclesiastical  influence  was 
supreme  and  where  the  Popes  exercised  their  jurisdic- 
tion as  the  ultimate  authority  to  be  appealed  to  in  all 
disputed  educational  questions.) 

Roth  continues  :  '  *  Padua  had,  like  Bologna,  dissection 
in  the  fourteenth  century.  There  is  the  record  of  a  dis- 
section made  in  the  year  1341,  in  which  Gentilis  made 
the  discovery  of  a  gall-stone. "  (It  is  evidently  not  be- 
cause the  dissection  was  unusual,  but  because  the  dis- 
covery was  unusual,  that  this  incident  is  mentioned. 
The  dissections  were  such  ordinary  occurrences  as  not 
to  deserve  special  mention  except  for  some  particular 
reason.) 

"Much  more  is  known  about  dissection  at  Padua  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  when  the  city  had  become  Vene- 
tian. J>1  (It  is  significant  to  note  that  the  previous  oc- 
currence was  in  pre- Venetian  days,  for  Professor  White 
insists  that  it  was  the  Venetian  authorities,  in  opposition 
to  the  Pope,  who  allowed  dissection  at  Padua.  Here  is 
the  rebuttal  of  any  such  theory.)  ' *  Bertapaglia,  in  his 
Surgery,  has  the  record  of  the  dissection  of  a  criminal 
made  under  the  direction  of  Master  Hugo  De  Senis,  on 

1  Note  that  this  is  a  full  century  before  Vesalius's  time,  who,  Professor  White  in- 
sists, reintroduced  dissection. 


78  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

the  8th  of  February,  1429.  On  the  4th  of  April,  1430, 
the  dissection  of  a  woman  was  made.  In  1444  Professor 
Montagnana  speaks  of  fourteen  dissections  at  which  he 
had  been  present."  (This  would  seem  to  indicate  that 
dissections  were  quite  common  and  that  the  occasional  rec- 
ords of  them  give  no  proper  idea  of  their  actual  number. ) 
I  would  not  wish  to  produce  the  impression,  however, 
that  Italy  was  the  only  place  in  Europe  in  which  dissec- 
tions were  freely  done  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries.  There  is  no  doubt  that  anatomy  and  surgery 
and  every  branch  of  medicine  was  cultivated  much  more 
assiduously  and  with  much  better  opportunities  pro- 
vided for  students  down  in  Italy,  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world.  This  of  itself  alone  shows  the  utter  absurd- 
ity of  the  declarations  that  the  Church  was  opposed  to 
medical  progress  in  any  way,  since  the  nearer  the  center 
of  Christendom,  the  more  ardor  there  was  for  investiga- 
tion and  the  more  liberty  to  pursue  original  researches. 
Other  countries  also  began  to  wake  up  to  the  spirit  of  pro- 
gress in  medical  education  that  was  abroad.  In  France 
there  were  two  centers  of  interest  in  anatomy.  One  of 
these  was  at  Montpelier,  the  other  at  Paris.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  note,  however,  that  the  men  to  whom  anatom- 
ical progress  is  due  at  these  universities  obtained  their 
training,  or  at  least  had  taken  advantage  of  the  special 
opportunities  provided  for  anatomical  investigation  to  be 
had,  in  the  Italian  cities.  Guy  de  Chauliac  I  have 
already  mentioned.  He  is  spoken  of  as  the  Father  of 
Modern  Surgery,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  did  much  to 
set  surgery  on  a  very  practical  basis  and  to  make  anat- 
omy a  fundamental  feature  of  the  training  for  it.  He 
declared  that  it  was  absurd  to  think  that  surgeons  could 
do  good  work  unless  they  knew  their  anatomy. 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  79 

Under  his  fostering  care  the  study  of  anatomy  flourished 
to  a  remarkable  degree  at  the  University  of  Montpelier. 
The  difficulty  hitherto  had  been  that  it  was  very  hard  to 
procure  bodies  for  dissecting  purposes.  It  is  easy  to 
understand  that  friends  of  the  dead  would  always  pre- 
vent dissections  as  far  as  they  could.  They  do  so  even 
at  the  present  moment,  and  there  are  not  many  of  us 
who  find  it  in  our  hearts  to  blame  them  over  much  for 
it.  Few  of  us  are  ready  to  make  the  sacrifice  of  our 
own  dead.  Even  the  poor  in  those  days  had  friends 
who  prevented  the  cutting  up  of  their  remains ;  for 
large  alms-houses  were  not  presided  over  by  paid  offi- 
cials, but  by  religious,  to  whom  their  poor  in  their 
friendlessness  appealed  as  kindred.  There  were  not 
many  prisons,  and  they  were  not  needed  because  all 
felonies  were  punished  by  death.  Guy  de  Chauliac  real- 
ized that  here  was  the  best  opportunity  to  procure  bodies. 
Accordingly  it  was  mainly  through  his  instrumentality 
that  a  regulation  was  made  handing  over  the  dead 
bodies  of  malefactors  to  the  medical  school  for  dissect- 
ing purposes.  It  must  be  recalled  that  when  he  did  this 
the  Papal  court  was  at  Avignon,  in  the  South  of  France, 
and  exerted  great  influence  over  the  University  of  Mont- 
pelier, situate  not  far  away. 

The  reputation  of  the  University  of  Paris  is  such  that 
we  should  not  expect  her  to  be  backward  in  this  im- 
portant department  of  education.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
there  is  abundant  evidence  of  dissection  having  been 
carried  on  here  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
the  practice  was  not  interrupted  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  Lanf ranc,  the  famous  surgeon  who 
had  studied  with  William  of  Salicet  in  Italy  (we  have 
already  mentioned  both  of  them  and  we  shall  have  much 


80  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

to  say  of  them  hereafter) ,  taught  surgery  from  a  very 
practical  standpoint  in  Paris,  and  illustrated  his  teach- 
ings by  means  of  dissections.  Lanf  ranc  was  succeeded  in 
Paris  by  Mondeville,  whose  name  is  also  associated  with 
the  practice  of  dissection  by  most  historians  of  medicine, 
and  whose  teaching  was  of  such  a  practical  character 
that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  must  have  employed 
this  valuable  adjunct  in  his  surgical  training  of  students. 
In  general,  however,  the  records  of  dissecting  work  and 
of  anatomical  development  are  not  near  so  satisfactory 
at  Paris  as  in  the  Italian  universities.  As  is  the  case 
in  our  own  day  and  has  always  been  true,  universities 
were  inclined  to  specialties  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the 
specialty  of  Paris  was  Philosophy  and  Theology.  This 
was  choice,  however,  not  compulsion,  any  more  than 
similar  conditions  in  our  own  time.  The  medical  school 
continued  to  be  in  spite  of  this  one  of  the  best  in  the 
world,  though  it  was  not  famous  for  its  original  work, 
except  in  surgery,  which  is,  however,  the  subject  most 
nearly  related  to  anatomy  and  the  one  whose  develop- 
ment would  seem  necessarily  to  demand  attention  to 
anatomy. 

With  the  Renaissance,  which  is  usually  said  to  begin 
after  the  fall  of  Constantinople  in  1453,  and  the  con- 
sequent dispersion  of  Greek  scholars  throughout  Italy,  a 
new  spirit  entered  into  anatomy  as  into  every  other  de- 
partment of  intellectual  life  at  this  time.  The  reason 
for  it  is  not  easy  to  explain.  Perhaps  the  spread  of 
Greek  texts  with  regard  to  medicine  inspired  students 
and  teachers  to  try  out  their  problems  for  themselves, 
and  so  a  new  impetus  was  given  to  anatomical  investiga- 
tion. Whatever  it  was  that  caused  it,  the  new  move- 
ment came  unhampered  by  the  Church,  and  Italy  con- 


ANATOMY    TO    THE  RENAISSANCE  SI 

tinued  to  be  even  to  a  greater  degree  than  before  the 
Mecca  for  medical  students  who  wished  to  do  original 
work  in  anatomy.  During  the  last  fifty  years  of  the 
fifteenth  century  anatomy  began  its  modern  phase,  and 
original  work  of  a  very  high  order  was  accomplished. 
There  are  five  names  that  deserve  to  be  mentioned  in 
this  period.  They  are  Gabriele  Zerbi,  Achillini,  Beren- 
gar  of  Carpi,  Matthew  of  Gradi  and  Benivieni.  Each 
of  these  men  did  work  that  was  epoch-making  in  anat- 
omy, and  each  has  a  place  in  the  history  of  the  science 
that  will  never  be  lost. 

Z£rbi,  who  did  his  work  at  Verona,  traced  the  olfac- 
tory nerves  and  describes  the  nerve  supply  of  the  special 
senses  more  completely  than  it  had  ever  been  done 
before.  After  his  time  it  was  only  a  question  of  filling 
in  the  details  of  this  subject.  Achillini  added  much  to 
our  knowledge  of  the  anatomy  of  the  head,  being  the 
first  to  describe  the  small  bones  of  the  ear  and  also  to 
recognize  the  orifices  of  Wharton's  ducts.  Besides  this, 
which  would  have  been  quite  enough  to  have  given  him 
a  place  in  the  history  of  anatomy,  he  added  important 
details  to  what  had  been  previously  known  with  regard 
to  the  intestines,  and  described  very  clearly  the  ileo- 
cecal  valve  and  suggested  its  function.  Matthew  of 
Gradi,  or  De  Gradibus,  was  the  first,  according  to  Pro- 
fessor Turner  in  his  article  on  Anatomy  in  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica,  who  represented  the  ovaries  in  the 
correct  light  as  regards  their  anatomical  relations  and 
their  function. 

The  most  important  of  these  fifteenth  century  investi- 
gators in  pure  anatomy,  however,  is  Berengarius  or  Ber- 
engar  of  Carpi,  who  did  his  work  at  Bologna  at  the  end 
of  the  fifteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 


82  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

tury.  His  commentaries  on  Mondino's  work  show  how 
much  he  added  to  that  great  teacher's  instruction.  If 
he  had  no  other  distinction  than  that  of  having  been  the 
first  to  undertake  a  systematic  view  of  the  several  tex- 
tures of  which  the  body  is  composed,  it  would  have  been 
sufficient  to  stamp  him  as  a  great  original  worker  in  anat- 
omy. He  treats  successively  of  the  anatomical  characters 
and  properties  of  fat,  of  membrane  in  general,  of  flesh,  of 
nerve,  of  villus  or  fibre,  of  ligament,  of  sinew  or  tendon, 
and  of  muscle  in  general.  Almost  needless  to  say,  he 
must  have  made  many  dissections  to  obtain  such  clear 
details  of  information,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  he  probably 
did  make  many  hundreds.  If  he  had  done  nothing  else 
but  be  the  first  to  mention  the  vermiform  appendix,  it 
would  have  been  quite  sufficient  to  give  him  a  distinction 
in  our  day.  Everything  that  he  touched,  however,  he 
illuminated.  His  anatomy  of  the  fetus  was  excellent. 
He  was  the  first  to  note  that  the  chest  of  the  male  was 
larger  than  in  the  female,  while  the  capacity  of  the 
female  pelvis  was  in  the  opposite  ratio.  In  the  larynx 
he  discovered  the  two  arytenoid  cartilages.  He  recog- 
nized the  opening  of  the  common  biliary  duct,  and  was 
the  first  to  give  a  good  description  of  the  thymus  gland. 
All  this,  it  must  be  remembered,  before  the  end  of  the 
second  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century,  that  is,  almost 
before  Vesalius  was  born. 

Berengar's  work  was  done  at  Bologna.  Some  five 
years  before  his  death  Bologna  became  a  Papal  city. 
There  is  no  sign,  however,  that  this  change  in  the 
political  fortunes  of  the  city  made  any  difference  in 
Berengar's  application  to  his  favorite  studies  in  anatomy. 
As  we  shall  see  in  the  chapter  on  The  Papal  Medical 
School,  already  the  Popes  were  laying  the  foundations 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  33 

of  their  own  great  medical  school  in  Rome,  in  which 
anatomy  was  to  be  cultivated  above  all  the  other  sciences, 
so  that  there  would  be  no  reason  to  expect  from  other 
sources  of  historical  knowledge  any  interruption  of 
Berengar's  work,  and  it  did  not  come. 

A  fifth  great  student  of  anatomy  during  the  fifteenth 
century  was  Benivieni,  who  has  been  neglected  in  the 
ordinary  histories  of  anatomy  because  his  work  con- 
cerned itself  almost  exclusively  with  pathological,  not 
with  normal  anatomy.  In  our  increasing  interest  in 
pathology  during  the  nineteenth  century,  he  has  very 
properly  come  in  for  his  due  share  of  attention.  Profes- 
sor Allbutt,  in  his  address  on  the  Historical  Relations  of 
Medicine  and  Surgery  down  to  the  Sixteenth  Century, 
declares  that  Benivieni  should  be  revered  as  the  fore- 
runner of  Morgagni  and  as  one  of  the  greatest  physicians 
of  the  late  Middle  Ages.  Benivieni's  life  occupies  almost 
exactly  the  second  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  as  he 
was  born  probably  in  1448,  and  died  in  1502.  Allbutt 
says  :— 

' '  He  was  not  a  professor,  but  an  eminent  practitioner 
in  Florence,  at  a  period  when,  in  spite  of  its  Platonism, 
Florence  on  the  whole  was  doing  most  for  science  ;  for 
as  Bologna  turned  to  law,  Padua  turned  to  humanism 
and  philosophy.  He  was  one  of  those  fresh  and  inde- 
pendent observers  who,  like  Mondeville,  was  oppressed 
by  the  authority  neither  of  Arab  nor  Greek. " 

We  are  not  interested,  however,  at  the  present  time  in 
what  he  accomplished  for  surgery,  though  there  are  a 
number  of  features  of  his  work,  including  the  crushing 
of  stone  in  the  bladder  and  his  puncture  of  the  hymen 
for  retained  menses,  as  well  as  his  methods  of  division 
and  slow  extension  of  the  cicatricial  contractions  result- 


84  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

ing  from  burns  near  the  elbow,  which  place  him  among 
the  most  ingenious  and  original  of  surgical  thinkers.  It 
is  his  interest  in  dissection  that  commends  him  to  us 
here.  He  must  have  done  a  very  great  number  of 
autopsies. 

His  interest  in  the  causes  of  disease  was  so  great  that 
he  seems  to  have  taken  every  possible  opportunity  to 
search  out  changes  in  organs  which  would  account  for 
symptoms  that  he  had  observed.  His  place  in  anatomy 
and  the  history  of  pathology  has  not  been  properly  ap- 
preciated in  this  matter,  and  Professor  Allbutt  claims 
for  him  the  title  of  Father  of  Pathology,  rather  than  for 
those  to  whom  it  has  been  given,  and  demands  for  his 
work  done  in  Florence  during  the  second  half  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  the  credit  of  laying  the  real  foundation- 
stones  of  the  great  science  of  pathological  anatomy. 
Unfortunately,  he  died  comparatively  young  and  with- 
out having  had  time  properly  to  publish  his  own  contribu- 
tions to  medical  science.  Professor  Allbutt  says  :— 

"The  little  book  De  abditis  causis  morborum  (brief 
title),  was  not  published  in  any  form  by  Antony  Beni- 
vieni  himself,  but  posthumously  by  his  brother  Jerome, 
who  found  these  precious  notes  in  Antony's  desk  after 
his  death,  and  with  the  hearty  cooperation  of  a  friend 
competent  in  the  subject,  published  them  in  1506  in  a 
form  which  no  doubt  justly  merits  our  admiration. 
Benivieni's  chief  fame  for  us  is  far  more  than  all 
this ;  it  is  that  he  was  the  founder  of  pathological  anat- 
omy. So  far  as  I  know,  he  was  the  first  to  make  the 
custom  and  to  declare  the  need  of  necropsy  to  reveal 
what  he  called  not  exactly  "the  secret  causes,"  but  the 
hidden  causes  of  diseases.  Before  Vesalius,  before 
Eustachius,  he  opened  the  bodies  of  the  dead  as  deliber- 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  35 

ately  and  clear-sightedly  as  any  pathologist  in  the 
spacious  time  of  Baillie,  Bright  and  Addison.  Virchow, 
in  his  address  at  Rome,  said  Morgagni  was  the  first 
pathological  anatomist  who,  instead  of  asking  What  is 
disease  ?  asked  Where  is  it  ? 

But  Benivieni  asked  this  question  plainly  before  Mor- 
gagni:  "Not  only,"  says  he,*'  must  we  observe  the 
disease,  but  also  with  more  diligence  search  out  the  seat 
of  it."  The  precept  is  so  important,  I  will  quote  the 
original  words:  "Oportet  igitur  medicum  non  solum 
morbum  cognoscere,  sed  et  locum  in  quo  fit,  diligentius 
perscrutari. " 

Among  the  pathological  reports  are  morbus  coxaB  (two 
cases) ;  biliary  calculus  (two  cases) ;  abscess  of  the  me- 
sentery, thrombosis  of  the  mesenteric  vessels ;  stenosis 
of  the  intestine ;  some  remarkable  cardiac  cases,  several 
of  "polypus"  (clot,  which  was  a  will-of -the- wisp  to  the 
elder  pathologists) ;  scirrhus  of  the  pylorus,  and  proba- 
bly another  case  in  the  colon ;  ruptured  bowel  (two 
cases) ;  caries  of  ribs  with  exposure  of  the  heart.  He 
gives  a  good  description  of  senile  gangrene  which  even 
Pare  did  not  discriminate.  He  seems  to  have  had  re- 
markable success  in  obtaining  necropsies ;  concerning 
one  fatal  case  he  says  plaintively,  "Sed  nescio  qua  su- 
perstitione  versi  negantibus  cognatis,"  etc.  Of  another 
he  says,  "cadavere  publicse  utilitatis  gratia  inciso  "  (the 
case  of  cancer  of  the  stomach).  With  this  admirable 
and  original  leader,  Italian  medicine  of  the  fifteenth 
century  closes  gloriously,  to  slumber  for  some  fifty 
years,  till  the  dayspring  of  the  new  learning.  Of  his 
work  Malpighi  says,  and  apparently  with  truth,  "up  to 
now  it  is  the  only  work  in  pathology  which  owes  nothing 
to  anyone. ' ' 


86  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

This  should  be  enough,  it  seems  to  me,  to  settle  the 
question  that  anatomy  was  permitted  very  freely  before 
Versalius's  time.  I  have  said  it  in  other  places,  but  it 
may  be  well  to  recall  here,  that  Berengar  did  his  dissec- 
tion at  Bologna  just  before  and  after  the  time  it  became 
a  Papal  city  and  when  Papal  influence  was  very  strong. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  in  1512  Bologna  passed  under 
the  dominion  of  the  Popes,  there  is  no  question  of  any 
interruption  or  hampering  of  Berengar 's  work  in  anat- 
omy, and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  great  anatomist  did 
not  succeed  to  the  professorship  of  anatomy,  which  had 
been  held  up  to  this  time  by  Achillini,  until  in  the  very 
year  when  Bologna  came  under  Papal  sway,  and  had  his 
opportunity  to  do  his  independent  work  only  after  this. 
Professor  Turner  can  scarcely  find  words  strong  enough 
to  set  down  his  admiration  for  Berengar  and  his  work. 
Besides  what  we  have  already  quoted  he  says  that,  "  the 
science  of  anatomy  boasts  in  Berengar  of  one  of  its  most 
distinguished  founders." 

The  distinguished  Edinburgh  anatomist  harbors  no 
illusions  with  regard  to  any  supposed  opposition  of  the 
Church  to  dissection  or  to  the  development  of  anatomy. 
As  a  life-long  student  of  anatomy  who  knew  the  history 
of  his  favorite  science,  he  appreciated  very  well  just 
who  had  been  the  great  workers  in  it  and  where  their  work 
had  been  done.  He  says  that  "Italy  long  retained  the 
distinction  of  giving  birth  to  the  first  eminent  anatomists 
in  Europe,  and  the  glory  she  acquired  in  the  names  of 
Mondino,  Achillini,  Berengar  of  Carpi,  and  Massa  was 
destined  to  become  more  conspicuous  in  the  labors  of 
Columbus,  Fallopius  and  Eustachius."  These  are  the 
greatest  names  in  the  history  of  anatomy  down  to  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  with  the  single 
exception  of  Vesalius. 


ANATOMY    TO    THE    RENAISSANCE  87 

All  this  of  anatomical  development  in  Italy  at  universi- 
ites  that  were  directly  under  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
would  seem  to  settle  all  question  of  interference  by  the 
Popes  or  the  Church  with  any  phase  of  anatomical  de- 
velopment. It  does  not  seem  sufficient  for  Dr.  White, 
however.  When  I  called  attention  to  all  these  details  of 
the  history  of  anatomy,  long  before  the  reformation  and 
before  Vesalius,  Dr.  White's  response  was  the  following 
paragraph  in  which  he  explains  how  dissection  came  to  be 
practiced  at  all,  and  reiterates  not  only  his  belief  that  Pope 
Boniface's  bull  prevented  dissection,  but  even  insists  on 
what  cannot  but  seem  utterly  absurd  to  any  one  who  has 
read  even  the  brief  account  I  have  given  here,  that  ex- 
cept at  one  or  two  places,  and  then  only  to  a  very  limited 
degree,  dissection  was  not  practiced  at  all.  Here  is  how 
the  history  of  dissection  must  be  viewed  according  to 
Dr.  White  :  - 

"  But  Dr.  Walsh  elsewhere  falls  back  on  the  fact  that 
shortly  after  the  decree  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII. ,  which 
struck  so  severe  a  blow  at  dissection,  the  Venetian 
Senate  passed  a  decree  ordaining  that  a  dissection  of  the 
human  body  should  be  made  every  year  in  the  city  of 
Venice,  and  he  leaves  his  readers  to  conclude  that  this 
effectually  proves  that  dissection  had  not  really  been 
discouraged  by  the  Pope.  The  very  opposite  conclusion 
would  be  deduced  by  anyone  familiar  with  the  relations 
between  the  Republic  of  Venice  and  the  Papacy.  These 
two  powers  were  always  struggling  against  each  other  ; 
again  and  again  the  Venetian  Republic,  in  maintaining 
its  rights,  braved  the  Papal  interdicts.  The  fact  that  it 
allowed  dissections,  so  far  from  proving  that  the  Pope 
allowed  them,  would  seem  to  prove  that  in  this  case, 
and  in  so  many  other  cases,  and  especially  that  of  Vesa- 


88  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

lius  of  Padua,  the  Venetian  Senate  sought  to  show  the 
Vatican  that  it  would  yield  none  of  its  rights  to  clerical 
control.  This  very  fact— that  Venice  refused  to  be 
bound  with  regard  to  anatomical  investigation  by  an 
order  from  the  Vatican— seems  to  be  entirely  in  the  line 
with  all  the  other  facts  in  the  case,  which  show  that  the 
Roman  court  had  committed  itself,  most  unfortunately, 
against  the  main  means  of  progress  in  anatomy  and 
medicine." 

Here  then  is  the  answer  that  a  modern  historian 
and  educator  makes  to  all  the  representations  with  re- 
gard to  the  development  of  anatomy  and  the  practice  of 
dissection  during  the  Middle  Ages.  If  the  practice  of 
dissection  was  permitted  it  was  in  spite  of  the  Popes. 
The  fact  that  there  were  a  dozen  of  medical  schools  in 
Italy  at  which  dissection  was  carried  on  is  ignored.  The 
great  anatomists  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 
turies simply  did  not  exist— Dr.  White  knows  nothing 
about  them.  There  must  be  no  admission  that  the  Popes 
permitted  dissection  or  any  other  form  of  science.  Dr. 
White  makes  his  last  stand  by  a  really  marvelous  tour 
d'esprit.  It  was  Venice  defying  the  Vatican  that  per- 
mitted dissection.  This,  he  supposes,  may  help  him,  for 
anatomy  did  develop  very  wonderfully  at  Padua  when 
it  was  Venetian  territory.  But,  as  pointed  out  by  Roth, 
dissection  was  practiced  very  successfully,  and  the  an- 
atomical tradition  established  at  Padua,  before  it  came 
under  the  dominion  of  Venice.  At  all  the  other  impor- 
tant cities  of  Italy  dissection  was  carried  on.  We  have 
given  some  of  the  evidence  for  Verona,  for  Pisa,  for 
Naples,  for  Bologna,  for  Florence,  and,  be  it  remem- 
bered, even  for  Rome.  Padua  was  the  rival  of  Bologna 
in  anatomy  only  for  a  comparatively  short  time.  Bologna 


ANATOMY    TO    THE  RENAISSANCE  39 

always  maintained  a  primacy  in  the  field  of  anatomy, 
and  never  more  so  than  after  she  became  a  Papal  city 
at  the  beginning1  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Vesalius 
taught  and  demonstrated  not  at  Padua  alone,  but  also 
at  Bologna  and  at  Pisa.  For  two  centuries  Rome  was 
the  most  successful  rival  of  Bologna,  and  hundreds  of 
dissections  were  done  in  the  Papal  Medical  School. 

Of  course,  the  appeal  to  Venetian  opposition  to  the 
Papacy  as  an  explanation  for  dissection  being  carried  on 
in  Italy  in  spite  of  ecclesiastical  regulations  to  the  contrary 
is  only  a  subterfuge.  It  can  only  be  found  in  histories 
written  by  those  who  refuse  to  see  facts  as  they  were, 
because  those  facts  do  not  accord  with  pet  theories  as 
to  Papal  Opposition  to  Science,  and  the  Warfare  Between 
Theology  and  Science,  which  must  be  maintained  at  all 
costs,  though  with  an  air  of  apology  always  for  having 
to  tell  such  unpleasant  truths  of  these  old-time  religious 
authorities. 


THE    GOLDEN    AGE    OP    ANATOMY 
VESALIUS. 

The  Golden  Age  of  discovery  in  anatomy  culminated 
during  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  This  will 
not  be  surprising  if  it  is  but  recalled  that  this  period 
represents  the  culmination  also  of  that  larger  golden  age 
ot  achievement  in  art  and  letters,  which  has  been  called 
the  Renaissance.  Columbus  and  Copernicus  were  giving 
men  a  new  world  and  a  new  universe.  Raphael,  Michael 
Angelo,  Lionardo  da  Vinci,  the  Bellinis  and  Titian  were 
creating  a  new  world  of  art.  Most  of  these  artists  were 
deeply  interested  in  anatomy.  Every  phase  of  human 
thought  was  being  born  anew.  Unfortunately,  this 
word  Renaissance  has  given  rise  to  many  misunder- 
standings. Many  people  have  taken  its  significance  of 
re-birth  to  mean  that  art  and  letters,  and  with  them 
education  and  thinking,  were  born  again  into  the  mod- 
ern world  at  this  time  with  the  coming  in  of  the  New 
Learning,  just  as  if  there  had  been  nothing  worth  while 
talking  about  in  these  lines  of  human  accomplishment 
in  the  preceding  centuries.  Taken  in  this  sense,  the 
word  Renaissance  is  entirely  a  misnomer.  Magnificent 
achievements  in  art  and  letters  and  every  form  of  edu- 
cation preceded  the  Renaissance  by  at  least  three  or  four 
centuries.  The  Gothic  cathedrals  and  the  enduring  ar- 
tistic development  that  took  place  in  their  making,  the 
magnificent  organization  of  technical  education  in  the 
training  of  artist  artisans  by  the  guilds  of  the  time  (we 
would  be  glad  if  our  technical  schools  could  accomplish 

(90) 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  91 

anything  like  the  same  results,  for  evidently,  though 
the  name  technical  education  is  our  invention,  these 
medieval  peoples  had  the  reality  to  a  high  degree) ,  and 
finally  the  universities,  which  have  remained  essentially 
the  same  down  to  our  own  day— all  these  serve  to  show 
how  much  was  done  for  every  form  of  education  many 
centuries  before  the  beginning  of  the  Renaissance  so- 
called. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  with  this  much  of  education 
abroad  in  the  land  men  succeeded  in  making  enduring  lit- 
erature in  every  form  and  in  every  country  in  Europe, 
and  in  setting  examples  of  style  in  prose  and  verse  that 
succeeding  generations  have  nearly  always  gone  back  to 
admire  lovingly.  Such  an  amount  of  education  and  de- 
velopment of  thinking  could  not  have  come  without  pro- 
found attention  to  science,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there 
was  much  more  anticipation  of  even  what  is  most  modern 
in  our  scientific  thinking  than  most  scholars  seem  to 
have  any  idea  of.  Personally,  I  have  found,  in  writing 
the  history  of  The  Thirteenth  the  Greatest  of  Centuries, 
more  that  interested  me  in  the  science  of  this  century 
than  in  almost  any  other  department  of  its  wonderful 
educational  development. 

We  have  already  seen  that  while  anatomy  had  during 
preceding  centuries  only  the  beginning  of  the  develop- 
ment that  it  was  destined  to  reach  during  the  sixteenth 
century,  it  would  be  a  serious  mistake  to  thin'k  that  the 
study  of  anatomy,  having  died  in  the  old  classical  days, 
was  not  re-born  until  the  sixteenth  century.  This  would 
be  to  commit  the  error  that  many  ardent  devotees  of  the 
Renaissance  make  with  regard  to  all  the  accomplish- 
ments of  this  period.  In  spite  of  the  contrary  almost 
universal  impression,  the  Renaissance  was  not  original 


92  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

to  any  marked  degree.  With  the  touch  of  the  Greek 
spirit  that  had  come  again  into  the  world,1  it  only  carried 
the  preceding  work  of  great  original  thinkers  to  a  high 
order  of  perfection.  This  happened  as  well  in  anatomy 
as  in  art  and  architecture  and  literature.  Anatomical 
science  was  a  lusty  infant  of  great  promise  when  Vesa- 
lius,  the  Father  of  Anatomy,  came  on  the  scene.  The 
great  painters,  Raphael  and  Lionardo  and  Michael  An- 
gelo,  owed  much  to  Giotto  and  Fra  Angelico,  who  had 
preceded  them,  but  not  more  than  Vesalius  and  his  con- 
temporaries, who  did  such  magnificent  work  in  original 
anatomical  investigation,  owed  to  Mondino,  Bertrucci, 
Zerbi,  Achillini,  and  above  all  to  Berengar  of  Carpi  and 
Benivieni,  who  did  their  work  before  and  just  after  the 
sixteenth  century  opened.  There  is  never  a  sudden  de- 
velopment in  the  history  of  any  department  of  man's 
knowledge  or  achievement,  as  there  is  nothing  absolute- 
ly new  under  the  sun,  though  it  is  still  the  custom  of  the 
young  man  in  his  graduation  essay  to  talk  of  such  things, 
and  older  men  sometimes  fail  to  realize  the  truth  that  in 
history  as  in  biology,  life  always  comes  from  preceding 
life— omne  vivum  ex  vivo— and  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
spontaneous  generation. 

If  the  achievements  of  this  earlier  period  of  scientific 
work,  which  affected  anatomy  even  more  than  any  of 
the  other  sciences,  be  kept  in  mind,  the  discussion  of 
the  Golden  Age  of  Anatomy  will  find  its  proper  place  in 
the  history  of  the  relation  of  the  Popes  to  science. 
Though  the  date  'of  the  Golden  Age  in  Anatomy  follows 
that  of  the  so-called  reformation,  there  is  absolutely  no 
connection  between  the  two  series  of  events,  for  the  one 
took  place  in  Germany  and  the  other  in  Italy.  The 
Golden  Age  of  Anatomy  was  indeed  a  perfectly  legiti- 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  93 

mate  and  quite  to  be  expected  culmination  of  the  ana- 
tomical interest  which  had  been  gradually  rising  to  a 
climax  in  the  Italian  universities  during  the  preceding 
century.  It  has  a  definite  place  in  the  evolution  of  sci- 
ence, and  is  not  a  sudden  or  unlocked  for  phenomenon. 

If  there  was  any  place  in  the  world  at  the  beginning 
of  the  sixteenth  century  in  which  the  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities had  much  to  say  with  regard  to  what  should 
not  be  taught  and  what  should  not  be  studied  in  the  uni- 
versities, it  was  Italy.  In  spite  of  this  fact,  all  medical 
men  who  wanted  to  do  post-graduate  work  in  medicine 
went  down  into  Italy.  This  was  especially  true  for  those 
who  desired  to  obtain  ampler  opportunities  for  anatom- 
ical study  than  were  afforded  by  the  rest  of  Europe.  In 
his  maturer  years  as  a  student  of  medicine,  Vesalius 
went  down  to  Italy  in  order  to  avail  himself  of  the  mag- 
nificent field  for  investigation  that  was  provided  there. 
This  favorable  state  of  affairs  as  regards  research  in 
anatomy  had  existed  for  more  than  a  century  before  his 
time.  It  continued  to  be  true  for  at  least  two  centuries 
after  his  time.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Italy  was  to  the 
rest  of  the  world  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  and  sev- 
enteenth centuries  the  home  of  post-graduate  opportun- 
ities in  all  sciences  as  well  as  in  medicine. 

These  are  not  idle  words,  but  are  fully  substantiated 
by  the  lives  of  the  men  who  stand  at  the  head  of  our 
modern  medicine.  More  than  a  decade  before  Vesalius 
was  born,  Linacre,  the  distinguished  English  physician 
and  founder  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians,  went  to 
Italy  to  complete  his  medical  studies  and  incidentally 
also  to  round  out  his  education  in  the  midst  of  the  new 
learning  which  was  so  thoroughly  cultivated  there. 
When  Linacre  was  leaving  Italy,  with  true  classic  spirit 


94  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

he  set  up  a  little  altar  on  the  top  of  the  Alps  whence  he 
could  get  his  last  view  of  the  Italian  plains,  and  greeted 
the  charming  country  that  he  was  leaving  so  reluctantly 
with  the  beautiful  name  of  Alma  Mater  Studiorum.  To 
him,  after  his  return  to  England,  English-speaking  med- 
ical men  owe  the  establishment  of  the  institution  which 
above  all  others  has  helped  to  uplift  the  dignity  of  the 
medical  profession  and  make  the  practice  of  the  healing 
art  something  more  than  a  mere  trade— the  Royal  Col- 
lege of  Physicians. 

One  of  Vesalius's  most  distinguished  fellow  students 
at  Padua  was  Dr.  John  Caius,  who  was  later  to  become 
the  worthy  president  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians 
of  England  and  the  author  of  certain  important  medical 
works.  Dr.  Caius  was  the  first  to  introduce  the  practice 
of  public  dissections  into  England.  Caius  and  Vesalius 
were  roommates,  though  at  the  time  Vesalius  was  an  in- 
structor at  the  University,  and  the  inspiration  of  his 
originality  seems  to  have  had  a  great  effect  upon  young 
Caius.  They  were  nearly  of  the  same  age,  though  Vesa- 
lius was  a  precocious  genius,  and  Caius 's  greatness  only 
showed  itself  in  maturity.  Caius  was  studying  in  Italy 
partly  because  the  religious  disturbances  in  England  had 
made  it  uncomfortable  for  him  to  remain  in  his  native 
country,  for  he  was  a  firm  adherent  of  the  old  Church 
and  he  hoped  they  would  pass  over,  but  mainly  because 
he  coveted  the  opportunities  afforded  by  that  country. 
Later  in  life,  out  of  the  revenues  of  his  position  as  Royal 
Physician  to  Queen  Mary  and  subsequently  for  some  time 
to  Queen  Elizabeth,  he  founded  the  famous  Caius  Col- 
lege at  Cambridge,  usually  called  Key's  College  by  Can- 
tabrigians. 

Before  either  of  these  men  there  had  been  a  third  dis- 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  95 

tinguished  English  physician  who  had  gone  down  to 
Italy  for  his  education.  This  was  the  celebrated  and 
learned  John  Phreas,  who  was  born  about  the  commence- 
ment of  the  fifteenth  century.  Very  little  is  known 
of  his  career,  but  what  we  do  know  is  of  great  interest. 
He  was  educated  at  Oxford  and  obtained  a  fellowship  on 
the  foundation  of  Balliol  College.  Afterward  he  seems 
to  have  studied  medicine  with  a  physician  in  England, 
but  was  not  satisfied  with  the  medical  education  thus 
obtained.  He  set  the  fashion  for  going  down  into  Italy 
sometime  during  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  after  some  years  spent  at  Padua  received  the  degree 
of  doctor  in  medicine,  which  in  those  days  carried  with 
it,  as  the  name  implies,  the  right  to  teach.  As  not  in- 
frequently happens  to  the  brilliant  medical  student,  he 
settled  down  for  practice  in  the  university  town  in  which 
he  graduated,  to  take  up  both  occupations,  that  of 
teacher  and  practitioner.  He  is  said  to  have  made  a 
large  fortune  in  the  practice  of  physic.1  The  best  proof 
of  his  scholarship  is  to  be  found  in  some  letters  still 
preserved  in  the  Bodleian  and  in  the  Library  of  Balliol 
College.  Personally,  I  have  considered  that  his  career 
was  interesting  from  another  standpoint.  I  have  often 
looked  in  history  for  the  cases  of  appendicitis  which  oc- 
cur so  frequently  in  our  day  and  with  regard  to  which 
people  ask  how  is  it  they  did  not  occur  in  the  past.  The 
fact  is,  they  did  occur,  but  were  unrecognized.  People 
were  taken  suddenly  ill,  not  infrequently  a  short  time 
after  a  meal,  and  after  considerable  pain  and  fever, 
swelling  and  great  tenderness  in  the  abdomen  devel- 


1  Like  the  other  distinguished  physicians  of  this  time,  John  Phreas  did  not  devote 
himself  to  medicine  alone.  He  had  a  taste  for  literature,  and  besides  being  an  accom- 
plished scholar  he  was  a  poet. 


96  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

oped,  and  they  died  with  all  the  signs  of  poisoning. 
They  were  actually  poisoned,  not  by  some  extraneous 
material,  but  by  the  putrid  contents  of  their  own  intes- 
tines which  found  a  way  out  through  the  ruptured  ap- 
pendix. These  cases  were  set  down  as  poisoning  cases, 
and  usually  some  interested  person  was  the  subject  of 
suspicion.  Dr.  Phreas's  learning  had  obtained  for  him 
an  appointment  to  a  bishopric  in  England,  a  curious  bit 
of  evidence  of  the  absence  of  opposition  between  med- 
ical science  and  religion  in  his  time.  He  died  shortly 
after  this,  under  circumstances  that  raised  a  suspicion 
of  poisoning  in  the  minds  of  some  of  his  contemporaries— 
but  raises  the  thought  of  appendicitis  in  mine,  —and  one 
of  his  rivals  was  blamed  for  it. 

Nor  did  the  custom  for  English  medical  students  to  go 
down  to  Italy  to  complete  their  education  cease  with  the 
so-called  reformation.  Some  two  generations  after  Vesa- 
lius's  time  another  distinguished  Englishman,  Harvey, 
went  down  to  Italy  to  complete  the  studies  he  had  al- 
ready made  and  eventually  to  lay  the  foundation  of  that 
knowledge  on  which  he  was  twenty  years  later  to  con- 
struct his  doctrine  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  This 
doctrine,  however,  remained  merely  a  theory  until  the 
distinguished  Italian  anatomist,  Malpighi,  after  another 
half  century,  demonstrated  the  existence  of  the  capillar- 
ies, the  little  blood  vessels  which  connect  the  veins  and 
arteries,  and  by  thus  showing  the  continuity  of  both  the 
blood  systems,  proved  beyond  all  doubt  the  certainty  of 
the  teaching  that  the  blood  does  circulate. 

Students  came,  moreover,  from  even  the  distant  North 
of  Europe  to  the  Italian  schools  of  medicine  during  these 
centuries.  Neil  Stensen,  or  as  he  is  perhaps  better 
known  by  his  Latin  name,  Nicholas  Steno,  the  discov- 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  97 

erer  of  the  duct  of  the  parotid  gland,  which  has  been 
named  after  him,  and  of  many  other  anatomical  details, 
especially  of  the  fact  that  the  heart  is  a  muscle,  which 
stamp  him  as  an  original  investigator  of  the  highest  or- 
der, after  having  made  extensive  studies  in  the  Nether- 
lands and  in  France  to  complete  the  medical  education 
which  he  had  begun  in  his  native  city  of  Copenhagen, 
went  down  into  Italy  to  secure  freer  opportunities  for 
original  research  than  he  could  obtain  anywhere  else  in 
Europe.1 

We  have  mentioned  that  it  was  while  he  was  pursuing 
his  special  investigations  in  various  Italian  universities 
that  Stensen  was  honored  with  the  invitation  to  become 
professor  of  anatomy  at  the  University  of  Copenhagen. 
This  was  not  a  chance  event,  but  a  type  of  the  point  of 
view  in  university  education  at  the  time.  Just  as  at  the 
present  time  the  prestige  of  research  in  a  German  uni- 
versity counts  for  much  as  a  recommendation  for  pro- 
fessorships in  our  American  universities,  so  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries  was  it  with  regard  to 
study  in  Italy.  It  was  felt  that  men  who  had  spent  sev- 

1  It  may  perhaps  be  of  interest  to  say  that  while  doing  investigation  in  anatomy  and 
certain  other  sciences  allied  to  medicine,  Steno  became  a  convert  to  the  Catholic 
Church  and  after  some  years  became  a  priest.  Before  his  ordination,  however, 
though  after  his  conversion,  he  received  the  call  to  the  chair  of  anatomy  at  Copen- 
hagen. He  accepted  this  and  worked  for  several  years  at  the  Danish  University,  but 
was  dissatisfied  with  the  state  of  affairs  around  him  as  regards  religion  and  went 
back  to  Italy.  Eventually  he  was  made  a  bishop— hence  the  curious  picture  of  him 
in  a  Roman  Catholic  Bishop's  robes  in  the  collection  of  pictures  of  professors  of  anat- 
omy at  the  University  of  Copenhagen.  Not  long  after,  at  his  own  request,  he  was 
sent  up  to  the  Northern  part  of  Germany  in  order  to  try  to  bring  back  to  the  Church 
as  many  of  the  Germans  as  might  be  won  by  his  gentleness  of  disposition,  his  saintly 
character,  his  wonderful  scientific  knowledge,  and  his  winning  ways.  He  is  the 
Father  of  Modern  Geology  as  well  as  a  great  anatomist,  and  his  little  book  on  geology 
was  published  after  he  became  a  priest,  yet  did  not  hamper  in  any  way  his  ecclesias- 
tical preferment  nor  alienate  him  from  his  friends  in  the  hierarchy.  He  was  honored 
especially  by  the  Popes.  In  a  word,  his  career  is  the  best  possible  disproof  of  any 
Papal  or  ecclesiastical  opposition  to  science  in  his  time. 


98  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

eral  years  there  could  be  reasonably  expected  to  know  all 
that  there  was  to  be  known  in  the  rising  sciences  of  anat- 
omy and  physiology  ;  at  the  same  time  there  was  a  very 
general  impression,  quite  justified  by  the  results  ob- 
served, that  those  who  did  their  post-graduate  work  in 
Italy  were  nearly  always  sure  to  make  discoveries  that 
would  add  to  the  prestige  of  their  universities  later,  and 
that  would  be  a  stimulus  to  students  and  to  the  other 
teachers  around  them  such  as  could  be  provided  in  no 
other  way.  If  read  in  the  proper  spirit,  the  history  of 
the  universities  of  those  times  is  quite  like  our  own,  only 
for  influence,  the  name  of  Italy  must  always  be  substi- 
tuted for  that  of  Germany.  Yet  Italy,  if  we  were  to 
believe  some  of  the  writers  on  the  history  of  education 
and  science,  was  at  this  time  laboring  under  the  incubus 
of  ecclesiastical  intolerance  with  regard  to  anatomy  and 
an  almost  complete  suppression  of  opportunities  for  dis- 
section. Those  who  write  thus  know  nothing  at  all  of 
the  actual  facts  of  the  history  of  science,  or  else  they 
are  blinding  themselves  for  some  reason  to  the  real  situ- 
ation. 

Fortunately  students  of  the  facts  of  history,  especially 
those  who  have  devoted  any  serious  attention  to  the  his- 
tory of  medicine,  make  no  such  mistake.  For  them  it  is 
perfectly  clear  that  there  was  a  wonderful  development  in 
anatomy  which  took  place  down  in  Italy,  beginning  about 
the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  or  even  earlier,  and 
which  led  to  the  provision  of  such  opportunities  for  dis- 
section and  original  research  in  medicine,  that  students 
from  all  over  the  world  were  attracted  there.  For  in- 
stance, Professor  Clifford  Allbutt,  in  the  address  on  the 
Historical  Relations  of  Medicine  and  Surgery  to  the  end 
of  the  Sixteenth  Century,  already  quoted,  has  a  passage 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  99 

in  which,  as  an  introduction  to  what  he  has  to  say  about 
Galen,  he  sums  up  the  history  of  anatomy  from  the  return 
of  the  Popes  from  Avignon  to  Rome,  which  took  place 
just  about  the  beginning  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  down  to  the  time  of  Vesalius.  This  ex- 
presses so  well  what  I  have  been  trying  to  say  with 
regard  to  the  gradual  development  that  led  up  to  the 
Golden  Age  of  Anatomy  and  to  Vesalius' s  work,  that  I 
quote  it. 

' '  Meanwhile,  however,  the  return  of  the  Popes  to 
Rome  (1374)  and  the  displacement  of  the  Albucasis  and 
Avicenna  by  the  Greek  texts  renewed  the  shriveling 
body  of  medicine,  and  with  the  help  of  anatomy,  Italian 
medicine  awoke  again  ;  though  until  the  days  of  Vesa- 
lius and  Harvey  the  renascence  came  rather  from  men 
of  letters  than  of  medicine.  The  Arabs  and  Paris  said  : 
' '  Why  dissect  if  you  trust  Galen  ?  But  the  Italian  phy- 
sicians insisted  on  verification;  and  therefore  back  to 
Italy  again  the  earnest  and  clear-sighted  students  flocked 
from  all  regions.  Vesalius  was  a  young  man  when  he 
professed  in  Padua,  yet,  young  or  venerable,  where  but 
in  Italy  would  he  have  won,  I  would  not  say  renown,  but 
even  sufferance !  If  normal  anatomy  was  not  directly  a 
reformer  of  medicine,  by  way  of  anatomy  came  morbid 
anatomy,  as  conceived  by  the  genius  of  Benivieni,  of 
Morgagni,  and  of  Valsalva ;  the  galenical  or  humoral 
doctrine  of  pathology  was  sapped,  and  soaring  in  excel- 
sis  for  the  essence  of  disease  gave  place  to  grubbing  for 
its  roots. " 

A  sketch  of  Vesalius 's  career  will  give  the  best  pos- 
sible idea  of  the  influences  at  work  in  science  during  this 
Golden  Age  of  anatomical  discovery,  and  will  at  the 
same  time  serve  to  show  better  than  anything  else,  how 


100  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

utterly  unfounded  is  the  opinion  that  there  was  opposi- 
tion between  religion,  or  theology  and  science,  and  above 
all  medical  science,  at  this  time.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
will  demonstrate  that  the  educational  factors  at  work  in 
Vesalius's  time  were  not  different  from  those  of  the  pre- 
ceding century,  nor  indeed  from  those  that  had  existed 
for  two  or  three  centuries  before  his  time  ;  and  though 
his  magnificent  original  research  introduced  the  new 
initiative  which  always  comes  after  a  genius  has  left  his 
mark  upon  a  scientific  department,  the  spirit  in  which 
science  was  pursued  after  his  time  did  not  differ  essen- 
tially from  that  which  had  prevailed  before.  He  repre- 
sents not  a  revolution  in  medical  science,  as  has  so  often 
been  said,  though  always  with  the  purpose  of  demon- 
strating how  much  the  so-called  reformation  accom- 
plished in  bringing  about  this  great  progress  in  anat- 
omy, but  only  a  striking  epoch  in  that  gradual  evolution 
which  had  already  advanced  so  far  that  his  work  was 
rendered  easy  and  some  such  climax  of  progress  as  came 
in  his  time  was  inevitable. 

Vesalius's  earlier  education  was  received  entirely  in 
his  native  town  of  Lou  vain.  There  were  certain  pre- 
paratory schools  in  connection  with  the  university  at 
Louvain,  and  to  one  of  these,  called  Paedagogium  Castri 
because  of  the  sign  over  the  door,  which  was  that  of  a 
fort,  Vesalius  was  sent.  Here  he  learned  Latin  and 
Greek  and  some  Hebrew.  How  well  he  learned  his 
Latin  can  be  realized  from  the  fact  that  at  twenty-two 
he  was  ready  to  lecture  in  that  language  on  anatomy  in 
Italy.  His  knowledge  of  Greek  can  be  estimated  from 
the  tradition  that  he  could  translate  Galen  at  sight,  and 
he  was  known  to  have  corrected  a  number  of  errors  in 
translations  from  that  author  made  by  preceding  trans- 


THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  ANATOMY   ;  '-, 


lators.  To  those  who  know  the  traditions  of  that  time 
in  the  teaching  of  the  classic  languages  along  the  Rhine 
and  in  the  Low  Countries,  these  accomplishments  of 
Vesalius  will  not  be  surprising.  They  knew  how  to 
teach  in  those  pre-ref  ormation  days,  and  probably  Latin 
and  Greek  have  never  been  better  taught  than  by  the 
Brethren  of  the  Common  Life,  whose  schools  for  nearly 
a  hundred  years  had  been  open  in  the  Low  Countries 
and  Rhenish  Germany  for  the  children  of  all  classes,  but 
especially  of  the  poor.  Other  schools  in  the  same  region 
could  scarcely  fail  to  be  uplifted  by  such  educational  tra- 
ditions. Altogether,  Vesalius  spent  some  nine  years  in 
the  Pa3dagogium. 

As  illustrating  how  men  will  find  what  interests  them 
in  spite  of  supposed  lack  of  opportunities,  it  may  be  said 
that  from  his  earliest  years  Vesalius  was  noted  for  his  ten- 
dency to  be  inquisitive  with  regard  to  natural  objects, 
and  while  still  a  mere  boy  his  anatomical  curiosity  man- 
ifested itself  in  a  very  practical  way.  He  recalls  him- 
self in  later  years,  that  the  bladders  with  which  he 
learned  to  swim,  and  which  were  also  used  by  the 
children  of  the  time  as  play-toys  for  making  all  sorts  of 
noises,  became  in  his  hands  objects  of  anatomical  inves- 
tigation. Anatomy  means  the  cutting  up  of  things,  and 
this  Vesalius  literally  did  with  the  bladders.  He  noted 
particularly  that  they  were  composed  of  layers  and 
fibres  of  various  kinds,  and  later  on  when  he  was  study- 
ing the  veins  in  human  and  animal  bodies  he  was  re- 
minded of  these  early  observations,  and  pointed  out  that 
the  vein  walls  were  made  up  of  structures  not  unlike 
those,  though  more  delicate,  of  which  the  bladders  of 
his  childhood  days  had  proven  to  be  composed. 

His  preparatory  studies  over,  Vesalius  entered  the 


102 


THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 


University  of  Louvain,  at  that  time  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant universities  of  Europe.  At  the  end  of  the  fif- 
teenth and  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
Louvain  probably  had  more  students  than  any  other 
university  in  Europe  except  that  of  Paris,  and  possibly 
Bologna.  There  are  good  grounds  for  saying  that  the 
number  in  attendance  here  during  the  first  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century  was  always  in  excess  of  5,000.  The 
university  was  especially  famous  for  its  teaching  of 
jurisprudence  and  philology.  The  faculty  of  theology, 
however,  was  considered  to  be  one  of  the  strongest  in 
Europe,  and  Louvain,  as  might  be  expected  from  its 
position  in  the  heart  of  Catholic  Belgium,  was  generally 
acknowledged  to  be  one  of  the  great  intellectual  bul- 
warks of  Catholicity  against  the  progress  of  Lutheran- 
ism  in  the  Teutonic  countries  at  this  time.  Vesalius's 
parents  were,  and  his  family  always  had  been,  ardent 
Catholics,  so  that,  quite  apart  from  his  dwelling  not  far 
away,  it  was  very  natural  that  he  should  have  been  sent 
here.  He  seems  to  have  spent  five  years  in  the  university 
mainly  engaged  in  the  study  of  philosophy  and  philology, 
but  also  of  the  classics  and  languages  so  far  as  they 
were  taught  at  that  time. 

It  may  be  noted  as  another  instance  in  his  life  of  how 
a  student  will  find  that  which  appeals  to  him  even  in  the 
most  unexpected  sources,  that  Vesalius  took  special  in- 
terest in  certain  treatises  of  Albertus  Magnus  and 
Michael  Scotus,  which  treated  of  the  human  body  in  the 
vague,  curious  way  of  the  medieval  scholars,  and  yet 
with  a  precious  amount  of  information,  that  this  inquisi- 
tive youth  eagerly  drank  in.  More  interesting  for  Vesa- 
lius himself  were  certain  studies  undertaken  entirely  inde- 
pendently of  his  university  course.  One  of  his  biog- 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  1Q3 

raphers  tells  that  he  dissected  small  animals,  rats  and 
mice,  and  occasionally  even  dogs  and  cats,  in  his  eager- 
ness to  learn  the  details  of  anatomy  for  himself  and  at 
first  hand. 

After  graduating  at  Louvain  in  philosophy  and  philol- 
ogy, Vesalius  went  to  Paris  to  study  medicine.  At  this 
time  at  Paris,  Sylvius,  after  whom  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant fissures  of  the  brain,  the  sylvian,  is  named,  was 
not  only  teaching  anatomy  in  a  very  interesting  way,  but 
was  also  providing  opportunities  for  original  research  in 
anatomy  in  connection  with  his  own  investigations.  The 
interest  that  his  teaching  excited  may  be  gathered  from 
the  fact  that  over  400  students  were  in  attendance  at  his 
lectures.  Besides  Sylvius,  Gunther  of  Andernach  in 
Switzerland  was  also  teaching  in  Paris,  and  with  both 
of  these  distinguished  professors  Vesalius  became  inti- 
mately associated.  His  deep  interest  in  the  subject  of 
anatomy  would  of  itself  be  quite  sufficient  to  attract  the 
attention  of  professors,  but  he  had  besides  the  added 
advantage  of  being  known  as  the  descendant  of  a  family 
which  had  occupied  prominent  posts  as  medical  attend- 
ants to  the  greatest  ruling  family  of  Europe. 

It  was  at  Paris,  then,  that  Vesalius  first  was  able  to 
devote  himself  with  the  intense  ardor  of  his  character 
to  the  study  of  anatomy.  Nothing  less  than  original 
research  at  first  hand  would  satisfy  his  ardent  desire  for 
information  and  his  thirst  for  accurate  knowledge.  His 
practical  temper  of  mind  was  demonstrated  by  a  revolu- 
tion that  he  worked  in  the  method  of  doing  dissections 
at  the  time.  The  dissections  in  Paris  used  to  be  per- 
formed by  the  barber-surgeons,  as  a  rule  rather  ignorant 
men,  who  knew  little  of  their  work  beyond  the  barest 
outline  of  the  technics  of  dissection.  Teachers  in  anat- 


104  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

omy  used  to  stand  by  and  direct  the  operation  and  dem- 
onstrate the  various  parts.  These  teachers,  however, 
considered  it  quite  beneath  them  to  use  the  knife  them- 
selves. The  faultiness  of  this  method  can  be  readily 
understood.  Vesalius  began  a  new  era  in  the  history  of 
anatomy  by  insisting  on  doing  the  dissections  himself. 
It  was  not  long,  however,  before  he  realized  that  Paris 
could  not  afford  him  such  opportunities  as  he  desired. 
Altogether  he  did  not  remain  there  more  than  a  year, 
and  then  returned  to  the  Low  Countries. 

At  Louvain  he  continued  his  anatomical  work,  finding 
it  difficult  enough  to  procure  human  material,  but  using 
such  as  might  come  to  hand.  The  story  is  told  of  his 
first  attempt  to  get  a  complete  skeleton.  A  felon 
had  been  executed  just  outside  the  walls  of  Louvain,  and 
his  remains  were,  as  was  the  custom  at  that  time, 
allowed  to  swing  on  the  gibbet  until  the  birds  of  the  air 
had  eaten  his  flesh  and  the  wind  and  rain  had  bleached 
his  bones.  As  might  be  thought,  these  bones  were  a 
great  temptation  to  Vesalius.  Finally,  one  night  he  and 
a  fellow  student  stole  out  of  the  town  and  robbed  the 
gibbet  of  its  treasure.  In  order  to  accomplish  their 
task— no  easy  one,  because  the  skeleton  was  fastened  to 
the  beams  of  the  scaffold  by  iron  shackles— they  had  to 
remain  out  all  night.  They  buried  it  and  later  removed 
it  piecemeal,  and  when  they  had  finally  assembled  the 
parts  again  it  was  exhibited  as  a  skeleton  brought  from 
Paris. 

Even  this  story  has  been  made  to  do  duty  as  show- 
ing the  ecclesiastical  opposition  to  dissection  and  the 
advancement  of  anatomical  knowledge.  It  is  hard  to 
understand,  however,  why  men  will  not  look  at  such  an 
incident  from  the  standpoint  of  our  own  experience  in 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  1Q5 

the  modern  time.  There  are  men  still  alive  in  certain 
states  of  the  Union  who  recall  how  much  trouble  they 
had  to  go  to  as  medical  students  in  order  to  procure  a 
skeleton.  If  we  go  back  fifty  years,  nearly  every  skele- 
ton that  physicians  had  in  their  offices  was  obtained  in 
some  way  almost  as  surreptitious  as  that  just  described, 
or  was  purchased  through  some  underhand  channel. 
They  were  dug  up  from  potter's  field,  or  sometimes  pro- 
cured from  complacent  prison  officials,  or  occasionally 
stolen  from  respectable  cemeteries.  In  this  respect  Ve- 
salius  was  not  much  worse  off  than  were  his  medical 
colleagues  for  nearly  three  centuries  and  a  half  after  his 
time  in  the  northern  countries.  It  was  easier  to  procure 
such  material  in  Italy. 

Vesalius  had  that  precious  quality  that  makes  the 
investigator  desire  to  see  and  know  things  for  himself. 
He  could  not  get  opportunities  for  definite  anatomical 
knowledge  in  the  western  part  of  Europe,  so  he  gave  up 
his  practice,  though  Lou  vain,  his  native  town,  was  a  most 
promising  place,  having  nearly  200,000  inhabitants  and 
business  relations  with  all  the  world  at  the  moment,  and 
went  down  into  Italy  where  he  knew  that  he  could  pursue 
his  anatomical  studies  to  his  heart's  content.  The  tra- 
dition of  the  work  that  Zerbi  and  Achillini  had  done, 
and  especially  what  Benivieni  and  Berengar  had  accom- 
plished within  a  few  decades  before  this  time,  was  com- 
monly known  in  all  the  medical  schools  of  Europe,  and 
many  an  ardent  young  anatomist  in  the  West  yearned 
for  the  opportunities  and  the  incentive  that  he  could 
obtain  down  there.  Church  influence  was  predominant ; 
the  ecclesiastics  were  the  actual  rulers  of  the  universi- 
ties, but  medical  science,  and  above  all  anatomy,  was 
being  studied  very  ardently.  Vesalius  thus  prompted, 


106  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

came  and  found  what  he  looked  for.  At  the  end  of  ten 
short  years  of  work  down  there,  he  had  completed  his 
text-book  of  anatomy  which  was  to  earn  for  him  deserv- 
edly the  title  of  Father  of  Anatomy. 

At  first  Vesalius  seems  to  have  spent  some  time  in 
Venice,  where  he  attracted  considerable  attention  by  his 
thorough,  practical  anatomical  knowledge  and  independ- 
ent mode  of  thinking.  After  only  a  short  period  in 
Venice,  however,  he  proceeded  to  Padua,  where  he 
spent  some  months  in  preparation  for  his  doctor's  exam- 
ination. It  is  known  that,  having  completed  his  exam- 
ination in  the  early  part  of  December,  1537,  he  was 
allowed  within  a  few  days  to  begin  the  teaching  of 
anatomy,  and,  indeed,  was  given  the  title  of  professor 
by  the  university  authorities. 

The  next  six  years  were  spent  in  teaching  at  Padua, 
Bologna  and  Pisa,  and  in  fruitful  investigation.  Every 
opportunity  to  make  dissections  was  gladly  seized,  and 
Vesalius's  influence  enabled  him  to  obtain  a  large  amount 
of  excellent  anatomical  material.  He  began  at  once  the 
preparations  for  the  publication  of  an  important  work 
on  the  anatomy  of  the  human  body.  This  was  published 
in  1543  at  Basel,  at  a  time  when  its  author  was  not  yet 
thirty  years  of  age.  It  is  one  of  the  classics  of  anatomi- 
cal literature.  Even  at  the  present  day  it  is  often  con- 
sulted by  those  who  wish  to  see  the  illustrative  details 
of  Vesalius 's  wonderful  dissections  as  given  in  the  mag- 
nificent plates  that  the  work  contains.  It  has  become 
one  of  the  most  precious  of  medical  books,  and  is  eagerly 
sought  for  by  collectors. 

For  ten  years  more  Vesalius  devoted  himself  to  his 
favorite  studies  in  anatomy  and  physiology,  for  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  he  was  constantly  applying  his 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  1Q7 

/  , 

knowledge  of  form  and  tissue  to  function,  and  came  to 

be  looked  upon  as  the  leading  medical  investigator  of  the 
world.  It  is  apparently  sometimes  not  realized,  how- 
ever, that  Vesalius  was  no  mere  laboratory  or  dissecting 
room  investigator.  After  the  publication  of  his  great 
work  on  anatomy  he  set  himself  seriously  to  the  applica- 
tion of  what  he  had  discovered  to  practical  medicine  and 
surgery.  He  was  an  intensely  practical  man.  As  a 
consequence,  it  was  not  long  before  consultations  began 
to  pour  in  on  him,  and  he  came  to  be  considered  as  one 
of  the  greatest  medical  practitioners  of  his  time.  Ruling 
princes  in  Italy,  visitors  of  distinction,  high  ecclesias- 
tics—all wished  to  have  Vesalius 's  opinion  when  their 
cases  became  puzzling.  This  is  a  side  of  his  character 
that  many  of  his  modern  biographers  have  missed. 
Even  Sir  Michael  Foster,  whose  knowledge  of  the  his- 
tory of  medicine,  and  especially  of  physiology,  makes 
one  hesitate  to  disagree  with  him,  seems  not  to  have 
appreciated  Vesalius 's  interest  in  practical  medicine.  A 
laboratory  man  himself,  he  was  apparently  not  able  to 
appreciate  why  Vesalius  should  have  given  up  his  scien- 
tific research  in  Italy  to  accept  the  post  of  Royal  Phy- 
sician to  the  Emperor  Charles  V. 

Professor  Foster  thinks  it  necessary,  then,  to  find 
some  other  reason  than  the  temptation  of  the  import- 
ance of  the  position  to  account  for  Vesalius' s  acceptance 
of  it.  He  concludes  that  it  was  because  of  discourage- 
ment in  his  purely  scientific  studies  as  a  consequence  of 
the  opposition  of  the  Galenists.  Opposition  on  the  part 
of  the  old  conservative  school  of  medicine  there  was, 
and  some  of  it  was  rather  serious.  This  was  not  enough, 
however,  to  have  discouraged  Vesalius.  Professor  Fos- 
ter goes  so  far  as  to  wax  almost  sentimental  over  the 


108  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

fact  that  the  acceptance  of  the  post  of  physician  to 
Charles  V.  ended  Vesalius's  scientific  career;  "for 
though  in  the  years  which  followed  the  Father  of  Anato- 
my from  time  to  time  produced  something  original,  and 
in  1555  brought  out  a  new  edition  of  his  Fabrica,  differ- 
ing chiefly  from  the  first  one,  so  far  as  the  circulation  of 
the  blood  is  concerned,  in  its  bolder  enunciation  of  its 
doubts  about  the  Galenic  doctrines  touching  the  heart, 
he  made  no  further  solid  addition  to  the  advancement 
of  knowledge.  Henceforward  his  life  was  that  of  a 
court  physician  much  sought  after  and  much  esteemed— 
a  life  lucrative  and  honorable  and  in  many  ways  useful, 
but  not  a  life  conducive  to  original  inquiry  and  thought. 
The  change  was  a  great  and  a  strange  one.  At  Padua 
he  had  lived  amid  dissections  ;  not  content  with  the  public 
dissections  in  the  theatre,  he  took  parts,  at  least,  of 
corpses  to  his  own  lodgings  and  continued  his  labors 
there.  No  wonder  that  he  makes  in  his  Fabrica  some 
biting  remarks  to  the  effect  that  he  who  espouses 
science  must  not  marry  a  wife ;  he  cannot  be  true  to 
both.  A  year  after  his  arrival  at  the  Court  he  sealed 
his  divorce  from  science  by  marrying  a  wife ;  no  more 
dissections  at  home,  no  more  dissections  indeed  at  all ; 
at  most,  some  few  post-mortem  examinations  of  pa- 
tients whose  lives  his  skill  had  failed  to  save.  Hence- 
forth his  days  were  to  be  spent  in  courtly  duties, 
in  soothing  the  temporary  ailments,  the  repeated  gouty 
attacks  of  his  imperial  master,  in  healing  the  maladies 
of  the  nobles  and  others  round  his  throne,  and  doubt- 
less in  giving  advice  to  more  humble  folk,  who  were 
from  time  to  time  allowed  to  seek  his  aid.  Whither 
his  master  went,  he  went  too,  and  we  may  well  imagine 
that  in  leisure  moments  he  entertained  the  Emperor  and 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  1Q9 

the  Court  with  his  intellectual  talk,  telling  them  some 
of  the  fairy  tales  of  that  realm  of  science  which  he  had 
left,  and  of  the  later  achievements  of  which  news  came 
to  him,  scantily,  fitfully  and  from  afar." 

Professor  White  has  gone  much  farther  than  Sir 
Michael  Foster.  The  English  physiologist  knew  too 
much  about  the  history  of  medicine  in  Italy  even  to  hint 
at  any  ecclesiastical  opposition  with  regard  to  Vesalius. 
President  White,  however,  has  no  scruples  in  the  mat- 
ter. This  makes  an  excellent  opportunity  to  write  the 
kind  of  history  that  is  to  be  found  in  his  book.  Appar- 
ently forgetful  of  the  thought  that  the  Emperor  Charles 
V.  was  not  at  all  likely  to  take  as  his  body  physician  a 
man  who  had  been  in  trouble  with  the  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities in  Italy,  he  insists  that  the  reason  why  Vesalius 
dedicated  his  great  work  on  anatomy  to  the  Emperor 
Charles  V.  was  ' '  to  shield  himself  as  far  as  possible  in  the 
battle  which  he  foresaw  must  come. ' '  Later  he  suggests 
that  it  was  only  the  favor  of  the  Emperor  saved  him 
from  the  ecclesiastical  authorities. 

All  that  has  been  said  by  historians  with  regard  to  the 
reasons  for  Vesalius's  acceptance  of  the  post  of  physi- 
cian to  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  can  only  have  come  from 
men  who  either  did  not  know  or  had  for  the  moment  for- 
gotten the  story  of  Vesalius's  ancestry.  The  family 
tradition  of  having  one  of  its  members  as  physician  to 
the  Court  of  the  German  Emperor  was  four  generations 
old  when  Vesalius  accepted  the  position. 

Vesalius 's  great-grandfather  occupied  the  position  of 
physician-in-ordinary  to  Marie  of  Burgundy,  the  wife  of 
the  German  Emperor  Maximilian  L,  the  distinguished 
patron  of  letters  in  the  Renaissance  period.  He  lived  to 
an  advanced  age  as  a  professor  of  medicine  at  Louvain. 


HO  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

From  this  time  on  Vesalius' s  family  always  continued  in 
official  medical  relation  to  the  Austrian-Burgundy  ruling 
family.  His  grandfather  took  his  father's  place  as  phy- 
sician to  Mary  of  Burgundy,  and  wrote  a  series  of  com- 
mentaries on  the  aphorisms  of  Hippocrates.  Vesalius' s 
father  was  the  physician  and  apothecary  to  Charles  V. 
for  a  while,  and  accompanied  the  Emperor  on  journeys 
and  campaigns.  What  more  natural  than  that  his  son, 
having  reached  the  distinction  of  being  the  greatest 
medical  scientist  alive,  should  be  offered,  and  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course  accept  the  post  of  imperial  physician  ! 

The  simple  facts  of  the  matter  are  that  Vesalius  came 
down  into  Italy  in  order  to  study  anatomy,  because  in 
that  priest-ridden  and  ecclesiastically-ruled  country  he 
could  get  better  opportunities  for  anatomical  study  and 
investigation  than  anywhere  else  in  Europe.  He  spent 
ten  years  there  and  then  wrote  his  classical  work  on 
anatomy.  After  that  he  spent  some  years  applying 
anatomy  to  medicine.  Then  when  he  had  come  to  be 
the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  medical  profession  of 
the  world,  the  Emperor  Charles  V.,  at  that  time  the 
greatest  ruler  in  Europe,  asked  him  to  become  his  court 
physician.  Vesalius  accepted,  as  would  any  other  medi- 
cal investigator  that  I  have  ever  known,  under  the  same 
circumstances.  His  position  with  Charles  V.  gave  him 
opportunities  to  act  -as  consultant  for  many  of  the  most 
important  personages  of  Europe,  and  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  when  the  King  of  France  was  injured  in 
a  tournament  Vesalius  was  summoned  all  the  way  from 
Madrid,  and  gave  a  bad  prognosis  in  the  case. 

In  the  light  of  this  simple  story  of  Vesalius's  life  in 
Italy,  and  of  the  reasons  for  his  going  there  and  his  de- 
parture, it  is  intensely  amusing  to  read  the  accounts  of 


THE   GOLDEN   AGE   OF  ANATOMY 


this  portion  of  Vesalius  's  life,  written  by  those  who  must 
maintain  at  all  costs  the  historical  tradition  that  the 
Church  was  opposed  to  anatomy,  that  the  Popes  had 
forbidden  dissection,  and  that  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
were  constantly  on  the  watch  to  hamper,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible at  least,  if  not  absolutely  to  prevent,  all  anatomical 
investigation,  and  were  even  ready  to  put  to  death  those 
who  violated  the  ecclesiastical  regulations  in  this  matter. 
Dr.  White,  for  instance,  has  made  a  great  hero  of 
Vesalius  for  daring  to  do  dissection.     He  was  only  doing 
what  hundreds  of  others  were  doing  and  had  been  doing 
in  Italy  for  hundreds  of  years  ;  but  to  confess  this  would 
be  to  admit  that  the  Church  was  not  opposed  to  anat- 
omy or  the  practice  of  dissection,  and  so  perforce  Vesa- 
lius must  be  a  hero  as  well  as  the  Father  of  Anatomy. 
To  read  Dr.  White's  paragraph  in  the  History  of  the 
Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology,  one  cannot  but  feel 
sure  that  Vesalius  must  practically  have  risked  death 
over  and  over  again  in  order  to  pursue  his  favorite  prac- 
tice of  dissection  and  his  original  researches  in  anatomy. 
I  would  be  the  last  one  in  the  world  to  wish  to  mini- 
mize in  any  way  Vesalius's  merits.     He  was  a  genius,  a 
great  discoverer—  above  all  an  inspiration  to  methods  of 
study  that  have  been  most  fruitful  in  their  results,  and 
withal  a  devout  Christian  and  firm  adherent  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.    He  was  not  a  hero  in  the  mat- 
ter of  dissection,  however,  for  there  was  no  necessity 
for  heroism.     Dissection  had  been  practiced  very  assid- 
uously before  his  time  in  all  the  universities  of  Italy, 
especially  in  Bologna,  which  was  a  Papal  city  from  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  also  in  Rome  at 
the  medical  college  of  the  Roman  University  under  the 
very  eye  of  the  Popes. 


112  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

In  the  light  of  this  knowledge  read  President  White's 
paragraph  with  regard  to  Vesalius  : 

"From  the  outset  Vesalius  proved  himself  a  master. 
In  the  search  for  real  knowledge  he  risked  the  most  ter- 
rible dangers,  and  especially  the  charge  of  sacrilege,  found- 
ed upon  the  teachings  of  the  Church  for  ages.  As  we 
have  seen,  even  such  men  in  the  early  Church  as  Tertul- 
lian  and  St.  Augustine  held  anatomy  in  abhorrence,  and 
the  decretal  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  was  universally  con- 
strued as  forbidding  all  dissection,  and  as  threatening  ex- 
communication against  those  practicing  it.  Through  this 
sacred  conventionalism  Vesalius  broke  without  fear ;  des- 
pite ecclesiastical  censure,  great  opposition  in  his  own 
profession  and  popular  fury,  he  studied  his  science  by 
the  only  method  that  could  give  useful  results.  No  peril 
daunted  him.  To  secure  material  for  his  investigations, 
he  haunted  gibbets  and  charnel-houses,  braving  the  fires 
of  the  Inquisition  and  the  virus  of  the^  plague/'  (The 
italics  are  mine. ) 

A  very  interesting  commentary  on  the  expressions  of 
Professor  White  with  regard  to  Vesalius  is  to  be  found 
in  a  paragraph  of  Von  Toply's  article  on  the  History  of 
Anatomy  in  the  second  volume  of  Puschmann's  History 
of  Medicine,  already  quoted.  "Out  of  the  fruitful  soil 
so  well  cultivated  in  the  two  preceding  centuries,  there 
developed  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  the 
Renaissance  of  anatomy,  with  all  the  great  and  also  with 
all  the  unpleasant  features  which  belong  to  the  impor- 
tant works  of  art  of  that  period.  One  has  only  to  think 
of  Donatello,  Mantegna,  Michel  Angelo,  and  Verochio  to 
realize  these.  The  Renaissance  of  anatomy  developed 
in  a  field  of  human  endeavor  which,  if  it  did  not  owe  all, 
at  least  owed  very  much  to  the  art-loving  and  culture- 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  H3 

/ 

fostering  rulers,  Popes  and  cardinals  of  the  time.  Older 
historians  have  told  the  story  of  the  rise  of  anatomy  in 
such  a  way  that  it  seemed  that  the  Papal  Curia  had  set 
itself  ever  in  utter  hostility  to  the  development  of  anat- 
omy. As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Papal  Court  placed 
scarcely  any  hindrances  in  its  path.  On  the  contrary, 
the  Popes  encouraged  anatomy  in  every  way." 

In  the  page  and  a  half  following  this  quotation  Von 
Toply  has  condensed  into  brief  form  most  of  what  the 
Popes  did  for  medicine  and  the  medical  sciences,  though 
more  especially  for  anatomy,  during  the  centuries  from 
the  sixteenth  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth. 
Some  excerpts  from  this,  with  a  running  commentary, 
will  form  the  best  compendium  of  the  history  of  the 
Papal  relations  to  medical  education  and  will  show  that 
they  are  strikingly  different  from  what  has  usually  been 
said.  Von  Toply  begins  with  Paul  III.,  who  is  known 
in  history  more  especially  for  his  issuance  of  the  Bull 
founding  the  Jesuits.  It  might  ordinarily  be  presumed 
by  those  who  knew  nothing  of  this  Pope,  that  the  Head 
of  the  Church,  to  whom  is  due  an  institution  such  as  the 
Jesuits  are  supposed  to  be,  would  not  be  interested  to 
the  slightest  degree  in  modern  sciences,  and  would  be 
one  of  the  last  ecclesiastical  authorities  from  whom  pat- 
ronage of  science  could  possibly  be  expected.  It  was 
he,  however,  who  founded  special  departments  for  anat- 
omy and  botany  and  provided  the  funds  for  a  salary  for 
a  prosector  of  anatomy  at  Rome. 

After  this  practically  every  Pope  in  this  century  has 
some  special  benefaction  for  anatomy  to  his  credit.  Pope 
Paul  IV.  (1555-59)  called  Columbus  to  Rome  and  gave 
him  every  opportunity  for  the  development  of  his  orig- 
inal genius  in  anatomical  research.  Columbus  had  sue- 


114  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

ceeded  Vesalius  at  Padua  and  had  been  tempted  from 
there  to  Pisa  by  the  duke  who  wished  to  create  in  that 
city  a  university  with  the  most  prominent  teachers  in 
every  department  that  there  was  in  Italy,  yet  it  was 
from  this  lucrative  post  that  Pope  Paul  IV.  succeeded  in 
winning  Columbus.  Quite  apart  from  what  we  know  of 
Columbus' s  career  at  Rome  and  his  successful  investiga- 
tion on  the  cadaver  of  many  anatomical  problems,  per- 
haps the  best  evidence  of  the  friendly  relations  of  the 
Popes  to  him  and  to  his  work  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that,  first  Columbus  himself,  and  then  after  his  death 
his  sons,  in  issuing  their  father's  magnificent  work  De 
Re  Anatomica,  dedicated  it  to  the  successor  of  Pope 
Paul  IV.,  the  reigning  Pope  Pius  IV.  In  the  meantime 
Cardinal  Delia  Rovere  had  brought  Eustachius  to  Rome 
to  succeed  Columbus. 

Under  Sixtus  V.,  who  was  Pope  from  1585  to  1590, 
the  distinguished  writer  on  medicine,  and  especially  on 
anatomy,  Piccolomini,  published  his  lectures  on  anatomy 
with  a  dedication  to  that  Pope.  It  is  well  known  that 
the  relations  between  the  professor  of  anatomy  at  the 
Papal  Medical  School  and  the  Pope  were  very  friendly. 
As  was  the  case  with  regard  to  Colombo  or  Columbus,  so 
also  with  Caesalpinus.  Columbus  was  the  first  to  de- 
scribe the  pulmonary  circulation.  Csesalpinus  is  gener- 
ally claimed  by  the  Italians  to  have  made  the  discovery 
of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  throughout  the  body 
before  Harvey.  Columbus  had  been  at  Pisa  and  was 
tempted  to  come  to  Rome.  Csesalpinus  had  also  been 
at  Pisa  until  Clement  VIII.  held  out  inducements  that 
brought  him  to  Rome.  Clement  is  the  last  Pope  of 
the  century,  but  Von  Toply  mentions  five  Popes  in  the 
next  century  who  were  in  intimate  relations  with  dis- 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  H5 

tinguished  investigators  into  medical  subjects  and  whose 

names  are  in  some  way  connected  with  some  of  the  most 
noteworthy  teaching  and  writing  in  medical  matters 

during  the  seventeenth  century. 
It  will  be  readily  seen  what  a  caricature  of  the  life  of 

Vesalius  is  Prof.  White's  paragraph,  if  one  compares  it 
with  the  following  paragraph  taken  from  so  readily 
available  an  historical  source  as  the  article  on  the  His- 
tory of  Anatomy,  by  Prof.  Turner,  of  Edinburgh,  in  the 
first  volume  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica.  The  dis- 
tinguished Scotch  anatomist  who  so  worthily  filled  the 
chair  of  anatomy  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh  says 
with  regard  to  Berengar  of  Carpi,  who  was  the  professor 
of  anatomy  at  Bologna  thirty-five  years  before  Vesalius' s 
time,  that,  "  In  the  annals  of  medicine  Berengar 's  name 
will  be  remembered  as  one  of  the  most  zealous  and  emi- 
nent in  cultivating  the  anatomy  of  the  human  body.  It 
was  long  before  the  anatomists  of  the  following  age 
could  boast  of  equalling  him.  His  assiduity  was  inde- 
fatigable, and  he  declares  that  he  dissected  above  one 
hundred  human  bodies."  This  should  be  enough,  it 
seems  to  me,  to  settle  the  question  that  anatomy  was 
permitted  very  freely  before  Vesalius 's  time.  Professor 
Turner's  authority  in  such  a  matter  is  above  all  suspi- 
cion. He  knew  the  history  of  anatomy. 

If  more  evidence  be  needed,  compare  with  President 
White's  fantastic  sketch  of  Vesalius  the  following  sketch 
of  his  great  contemporary,  Columbus  or  Colombo,  to 
whose  anatomical  investigations  we  owe  the  discovery 
of  the  pulmonary  circulation  : 

' '  The  fame  of  Columbus  as  an  anatomical  teacher  was 
exceedingly  great  and  widespread.  Students  were  at- 
tracted to  the  universities  where  he  professed,  from  all 


116  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

quarters  and  in  large  numbers.  He  was  an  ardent  stu- 
dent of  his  favorite  science  and  was  imbued  with  the 
genius  and  enthusiasm  of  an  original  investigator.  He 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  critical  examination  of  mere 
structure,  but  extended  his  researches  into  the  more 
subtle,  difficult  and  important  investigation  of  the  phys- 
iological function.  He  has  been  most  aptly  styled  the 
Claude  Bernard  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  work  of 
Columbus  is  a  masterpiece  of  method  and  purity  of 
style,  as  well  as  on  account  of  its  richness  in  facts  and 
observations.  He  spent  over  forty  years  in  these  studies 
and  researches.  He  dissected  an  extraordinary  number 
of  human  bodies.  It  must  have  been  an  age  of  remark- 
able tolerance  for  scientific  investigation,  for  in  a  single 
year  he  dissected  no  less  than  fourteen  bodies.  He  also 
entered  the  crypts  and  catacombs  of  ancient  churches, 
where  the  bones  of  the  dead  had  been  preserved  and 
had  accumulated  century  after  century,  and  there,  with 
unwearied  care,  he  handled  and  compared  over  a  half 
million  of  human  skulls/7 

This  account  was  written  by  Dr.  George  Jackson 
Fisher  in  his  "Historical  and  Bibliographical  Notes" 
for  the  Annals  of  Anatomy  and  Surgery  (Brooklyn,  1878- 
1880).  All  the  material  that  Dr.  Fisher  used  in  his 
sketch  is  to  be  found  in  Roth's  "Life  of  Vesalius,"  p. 
256.  Now,  Columbus  was  a  contemporary  of  Vesalius, 
and  worked  with  him  at  Bologna.  The  years  of  their 
lives  correspond  almost  exactly.  When  Vesalius  left 
Padua  to  become  the  royal  physician  to  Charles  V.,  it 
was  Columbus  who  succeeded  him.  Later  he  taught 
also  at  Pisa.  Then,  strange  as  it  may  seem  for  those 
who  have  put  any  faith  in  Dr.  White's  excursion  into 
medical  science,  he  was  invited  to  become  Professor  of 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY 


Anatomy  at  the  Papal  University  at  Rome,  and  it  was 
while  there  that  he  had  as  many  as  three  hundred  stu- 
dents present  at  his  demonstrations  in  anatomy  and  there 
that  he  did  fourteen  dissections  in  one  year.  The  pre- 
tense that  there  was  any  ecclesiastical  objection  to  dis- 
section becomes  absolutely  farcical  when  one  compares 
the  life  of  Vesalius  sketched  by  President  White  with  a 
motive,  and  the  life  of  his  contemporary  and  successor, 
Columbus,  by  an  unbiased  physician,  whose  only  idea 
was  to  bring  out  the  facts. 

According  to  Prof.  White's  opinion,  Vesalius  dedicated 
his  work  to  Charles  V.  to  shield  himself  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, and  after  this  gave  up  his  anatomical  studies  in 
Italy  to  put  himself  under  the  protection  of  Charles  V. 

Vesalius's  successor,  Columbus,  did  not  have  to  do 
any  such  thing.  Instead,  he  went  down  to  Rome,  and 
under  the  protection  of  the  Popes  continued  to  carry  on 
his  anatomical  work  there. 

When  Charles  V.  died,  however,  according  to  Presi- 
dent White,  a  new  weapon  was  forged  against  Vesalius. 
Vesalius  was  charged  with  dissecting  a  living  man. 
President  White  hints  that  "the  forces  of  ecclesiasti- 
cism  united  against  the  innovators  of  anatomy,  and  either 
from  direct  persecution  or  from  indirect  influences  Vesa- 
lius became  a  wanderer."  Just  what  that  means  I  do 
not  know.  President  White  does  not  say  that  he  was 
exiled,  though  that  idea  is  implied.  There  is  a  great 
deal  of  doubt  about  this  charge  of  Vesalius  having  made 
an  autopsy  on  a  living  person.  Roth  discusses  various 
versions.  The  whole  thing  seems  to  be  a  trumped-up 
story  ;  but  supposing  it  true,  would  it  not  be  only  proper 
that  a  man  who  made  an  autopsy  on  a  living  person 
should  be  brought  before  the  court  ?  He  certainly  would 


118  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

in  our  day  in  any  civilized  country.  Professor  Foster, 
of  the  University  of  Cambridge  in  England,  following 
the  lead  of  President  White  in  this  matter,  blames  the 
Inquisition  for  instituting  the  prosecution.  If  this  were 
true,  no  more  proof  would  be  needed  that  the  Inquisi- 
tion was  a  civil  and  not  a  religious  institution,  since  after 
all  the  killing  of  a  man  by  a  premature  autopsy  is  a  plain 
case  of  homicide. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  seems  to  be  that  Vesalius,  who 
had  not  been  very  well  in  the  unsuitable  climate  of  Ma- 
drid, made  the  trip  to  the  Holy  Land,  partly  for  reasons 
of  health,  but  partly  also  for  reasons  of  piety.  While 
returning  he  was  shipwrecked  on  the  island  of  Zante 
and  died  from  exposure.  Vesalius  had  been  born  in 
Brabant,  at  that  time  one  of  the  most  faithful  Catholic 
countries  in  Europe.  Like  most  of  the  other  great  men 
of  his  time,  the  reformation  utterly  failed  to  tempt  him 
from  his  adhesion  to  the  Catholic  Church.  His  greatest 
colleagues  in  anatomy  and  in  medicine  were  Italians, 
most  of  whom  were  in  intimate  relations  with  the  Cath- 
olic ecclesiastics  of  the  time  and  continued  this  intimacy 
in  spite  of  the  disturbing  influences  that  were  abroad. 
Many  of  these  men  will  be  mentioned  in  our  account  of 
the  Papal  Medical  School  and  of  the  Papal  Physicians 
during  the  next  two  or  three  centuries.  The  distin- 
guished anatomists  and  physicians  of  France  in  Vesa- 
lius's  time  were  quite  as  faithful  Catholics  as  he  was. 
Even  Paracelsus,  the  Swiss,  whose  thorough-going  in- 
dependence of  mind  would,  it  might  naturally  seem, 
have  tempted  him  to  take  up  with  the  reformed  doc- 
trines, had  no  sympathy  with  them  at  all.  He  recog- 
nized the  abuses  in  the  Church,  but  said  that  Luther 
and  the  so-called  reformers  were  doing  much  more  harm 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE   OF  ANATOMY  H9 

than  good,  and  that  until  they  were  gotten  rid  of  no  im- 
provement in  ecclesiastical  matters  could  be  looked  for. 
When  Paracelsus  came  to  die  he  left  his  money  mainly 
to  the  Shrine  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  in  his  native  town 
of  Einsiedeln  and  for  masses  for  his  soul.  Since  their 
time  most  of  the  distinguished  medical  scientists  have 
been  quite  as  faithful  in  their  Catholicity  as  these  two 
great  medical  colleagues  of  the  Renaissance  period. 
While  medicine  is  supposed  to  be  unorthodox  in  its  ten- 
dencies, the  really  great  thinkers  in  medicine,  the  men 
to  whose  names  important  discoveries  in  the  science 
were  attached,  were  not  only  faithful  believers  in  the 
doctrines  of  Christianity,  but  were  much  more  often 
than  has  been  thought  even  devout  Catholics. 

At  the  death  of  Vesalius  the  Golden  Age  of  the  devel- 
opment of  anatomy  was  not  at  its  close,  but  was  just 
beginning.  Eustachius,  Csesalpinus,  Harvey  and  Mal- 
pighi  were  during  the  course  of  the  next  century  to 
make  anatomy  a  science  in  the  strict  sense  of  that  word. 
After  Vesalius' s  time  the  history  of  anatomy  in  Italy 
centers  around  the  Papal  Medical  School  to  a  great  ex- 
tent. During  Vesalius 's  lifetime  his  greatest  rival  be- 
came the  professor  of  anatomy  there.  The  anatomical 
school  of  Bologna,  in  connection  with  that  city,  became 
an  important  focus  of  anatomical  investigation.  At  this 
time  Bologna  was  a  Papal  city.  It  was  in  the  dominions 
of  the  Popes,  then,  as  we  shall  see,  that  anatomy  was 
carried  on  with  the  most  success  and  with  the  most 
ardor.  Far  from  there  being  any  opposition  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  science,  every  encouragement  was 
given  to  it,  and  it  was  the  patronage  of  the  Popes  and 
of  the  higher  ecclesiastics  that  to  a  great  degree  made 
possible  the  glorious  evolution  of  the  science  during  the 
next  century. 


SUPPOSED  PAPAL  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY. 

A  false  impression,  exactly  corresponding  to  that  with 
regard  to  anatomy,  has  been  created  and  fostered  by 
just  the  same  class  of  writers  as  exploited  the  anatomy 
question,  with  reference  to  the  attitude  of  the  Popes  and 
the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages  toward  the  study  of 
chemistry.  This  is  founded  on  a  similar  misrepresenta- 
tion of  a  Papal  document.  When  it  was  pointed  out  that 
this  Papal  document,  like  Pope  Boniface's  bull,  had  no 
such  purport  as  was  suggested,  just  the  same  subterfuge 
as  with  regard  to  anatomy  was  indulged  in.  If  the  Papal 
document  did  not  forbid  chemistry  directly,  as  was  said, 
at  least  it  was  so  misinterpreted,  and  chemistry  failed 
to  develop  because  of  the  supposed  Papal  opposition. 
These  expressions  were  used,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that, 
just  as  in  the  case  of  anatomy,  it  is  not  hard  to  trace  the 
rise  and  development  of  chemistry,  or  its  predecessor, 
alchemy,  during  the  years  when  it  is  supposed  to  be  in 
abeyance.  Certainly  there  was  no  interruption  of  the 
progress  of  chemical  science  at  the  date  of  the  supposed 
Papal  prohibition,  nor  at  any  other  time,  as  a  conse- 
quence of  Church  opposition. 

The  similarity  of  these  two  history  lies  is  so  striking 
as  to  indicate  that  they  had  their  birth  in  the  same  de- 
sire to  discredit  the  Popes  at  all  cost,  and  to  make  out  a 
case  of  opposition  on  the  part  of  ecclesiastical  authorities 
to  scientific  development,  whether  it  actually  existed  or 
not.  The  surprise  is,  however,  that  the  same  form  of 
invention  should  have  been  used  in  both  cases.  One 

(120) 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY        121 

might  reasonably  have  expected  that  the  ingenuity  of 
writers  would  have  enabled  them  to  find  another  basis 
for  the  story  on  the  second  occasion.  Still  more  might 
it  have  been  expected  that  when  the  error  with  regard 
to  the  tenor  of  the  Papal  document  was  pointed  out  to 
them,  a  different  form  of  response  would  be  made  in  the 
latter  instance.  The  whole  subject  indicates  a  dearth 
of  originality  that  would  be  amusing  if  it  were  on  a  less 
serious  matter,  and  does  very  little  credit  either  to  those 
who  are  responsible  for  the  first  draft  of  the  story,  but 
still  less  to  those  who  have  swallowed  it  so  readily  and 
given  it  currency. 

The  story  of  the  Supposed  Papal  Prohibition  of  Chem- 
istry was  characteristically  told  by  William  J.  Cruik- 
shank,  M.  D. ,  of  Brooklyn,  New  York,  in  an  address 
bearing  the  title,  ' '  Some  Relations  of  the  Church  and 
Scientific  Progress, "  published  in  The  Medical  Library 
and  Historical  Journal  of  Brooklyn  for  July,  1905.  The 
writer  called  emphatic  attention  to  the  fact  that  chem- 
istry, during  the  Middle  Ages,  had  come  under  the  par- 
ticular ban  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  who  effect- 
ually prevented  its  cultivation  or  development.  "The 
chemist/'  Dr.  Cruikshank  says,  "was  called  a  mis- 
creant, a  sorcerer,  and  was  feared  because  of  his  sup- 
posed partnership  with  the  devil.  He  was  denounced 
by  Pope  and  priest  and  was  persecuted  to  the  full  extent 
of  Papal  power.  Pope  John  XXII.  was  especially  ener- 
getic in  this  direction,  and  in  the  year  1317  A.D.,  issued 
a  bull  calling  on  all  rulers,  secular  and  ecclesiastical,  to 
hunt  down  the  miscreants  who  were  afflicting  the  faith- 
ful, and  he  thereupon  increased  the  power  of  the  Inqui- 
sition in  various  parts  of  Europe  for  this  purpose." 

At  the  suggestion  of  the  editor  of  the  Medical  Library 


122  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

and  Historical  Journal,  I  answered  these  assertions  of 
Dr.  Cruikshank,  pointing  out  that  the  Papal  document 
which  he  mentioned  had  no  such  purport  as  he  declared, 
and  that  the  history  of  chemistry  or  alchemy  presented 
no  such  break  as  his  assertions  would  demand.  Dr. 
Cruikshank  immediately  appealed  by  letter  to  his  au- 
thority on  the  subject,  whose  words,  in  the  History  of 
the  Warfare  of  Theology  with  Science  in  Christendom, 
though  I  did  not  realize  it  at  the  time,  he  had  repeated 
almost  literally.  In  his  chapter  on  From  Magic  to  Chem- 
istry and  Physics,  Dr.  Andrew  D.  White  says  :  "In  1317, 
Pope  John  XXII.  issued  his  bull  Spondent  pariter,  lev- 
elled at  the  alchemists,  but  really  dealing  a  terrible  blow 
at  the  beginning  of  chemical  science.  He  therefore 
called  on  all  rulers,  secular  and  ecclesiastical,  to  hunt 
down  the  miscreants  who  thus  afflicted  the  faithful,  and 
he  especially  increased  the  power  of  inquisitors  in  vari- 
ous parts  of  Europe  for  this  purpose. "  It  will  be  seen 
that,  as  I  have  said,  Dr.  Cruikshank's  words  are  al- 
most a  verbatim  quotation  from  this  paragraph.  It  is 
true  that  he  has  strengthened  the  expressions  quite  a 
little  and  added  some  trimmings  of  his  own,  still  I  sup- 
pose his  expressions  could  be  justified  if  those  of  Presi- 
dent White  had  a  foundation  in  fact.  A  little  compari- 
son of  the  two  sets  of  phrases  will  show  how  a  history 
lie  grows  as  it  passes  from  pen  to  pen.  Crescit  eundo— 
like  rumor,  it  increases  in  size  as  it  goes. 

In  defense  of  this  passage  in  the  History  of  the  War- 
fare of  Science  with  Theology  in  Christendom,  Dr.  White 
wrote  a  letter  of  reply  to  Dr.  Cruikshank,  which  was  in- 
corporated into  Dr.  Cruikshank's  response  to  my  article 
in  the  Medical  Library  and  Historical  Journal.  I  pre- 
sume that  this  was  done  with  Dr.  White's  permission. 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY         123 

/ 

In  this  letter  he  admitted  that  Pope  John's  decretal  had 
no  such  significance  as  he  originally  claimed  for  it,  but 
he  still  maintained  his  previous  opinion,  that  this  de- 
cretal, like  Boniface's  bull  for  anatomy,  had  actually 
prevented,  or  at  least  greatly  hampered  the  study  of 
chemistry.  To  this  I  replied  with  a  brief  story  of 
chemistry  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  though  that 
article  was  published  more  than  a  year  ago,  no  admis- 
sion has  been  made  and  nothing  further  has  been  pub- 
lished on  the  subject.  The  material  of  the  reply  to  Dr. 
White,  to  which  as  yet  there  has  been  no  answer,  is  com- 
prised in  this  chapter. 

As  I  have  already  hinted,  the  most  surprising  thing 
about  this  citation  of  a  Papal  decree  forbidding  chem- 
istry, is  that  it  proves  on  investigation  to  be  founded  on 
just  exactly  the  same  sort  of  misinterpretation  of  a 
Papal  document  as  happened  with  regard  to  anatomy. 
The  bull  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  forbidding  the  boiling 
of  bodies  and  their  dismemberment  for  burial  in  distant 
lands,  did  nothing  to  hinder  the  progress  of  anatomy, 
had  no  reference  to  any  preparations  required  for  dis- 
section, and  was  not  misinterpreted  in  any  such  sense 
until  the  nineteenth  century,  and  then  only  for  the  pur- 
pose of  discrediting  the  Popes  and  their  relations  to  sci- 
ence. Pope  Boniface's  bull,  far  from  being  harmful  in 
any  way  to  education  or  to  the  people,  was  really  bene- 
ficial, and  constituted  an  excellent  sanitary  regulation 
which  doubtless  prevented,  on  a  number  of  occasions, 
the  carriage  of  disease  from  place  to  place. 

The  decree  of  Pope  John  XXII. ,  which  has  been  falsely 
claimed  to  forbid  chemistry,  was  another  example  of 
Papal  care  for  Christendom,  and  not  at  all  the  obscur- 
antist document  it  has  been  so  loudly  proclaimed.  Pope 


124  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

John  learned  how  much  imposition  was  being  practiced 
on  the  people  by  certain  so-called  alchemists  who  claimed 
to  be  able  to  make  silver  and  gold  out  of  baser  metals. 
In  order  to  prevent  this,  within  a  year  after  his  eleva- 
tion to  the  pontificate  he  issued  not  a  bull,  but  a  very 
different  form  of  document— a  decretal— forbidding  any 
"alchemies"  of  this  kind.  The  punishment  to  be  in- 
flicted, however,  instead  of  being  the  penalty  of  death, 
as  Dr.  Cruikshank,  Dr.  White  and  many  others  have  de- 
clared, or  at  least  let  it  be  understood  from  their  mode 
of  expression,  was  that  the  person  convicted  of  pretend- 
ing to  make  gold  and  silver  and  selling  it  to  other  people,, 
should  pay  into  the  public  treasury  an  amount  equal  to 
the  supposed  amount  of  gold  and  silver  that  he  had 
made.  The  money  thus  paid  into  the  public  treasury  was 
to  be  given  to  the  poor. 

The  best  way  to  show  exactly  what  Pope  John  in- 
tended by  his  decree  is  to  quote  the  decree.  It  does  not 
occur  in  the  ordinary  collection  of  the  bulls  of  John 
XXII. ,  for  it  was  not,  as  we  have  said,  a  bull  in  the 
canonical  sense  of  the  term,  but  a  Papal  document  of 
minor  importance.  There  is  an  important  distinction 
between  a  decree  and  a  bull,  the  former  being  but  of 
lesser  significance,  usually  referring  only  to  passing 
matters  of  discipline.  The  decretal  may  be  found  in  the 
Corpus  Juris  Canonica,  Tome  II.,  which  was  published 
at  Lyons  in  1779.  It  is  among  the  decrees  or  constitu- 
tions known  as  Extra vagantes.1 

1  The  meaning  of  this  term  we  discussed  in  the  previous  chapter  on  Anatomy  in 
relation  to  the  bull  of  Boniface  and  Liber  VI.  The  motto  of  the  publisher  of  the 
volume  in  which  it  occurs  deserves  quotation  because  of  its  apt  application  in  the 
present  circumstance.  It  is  in  Latin  :  "Quod  tibi  fieri  non  vis,  alteri  ne  feceris" — 
"  What  you  would  not  have  done  to  yourself,  don't  do  to  another."  If  writers  about 
the  Popes  were  as  careful  to  substantiate  accusations  against  them  as  fully  as  they 
would  like  any  accusations  against  themselves  to  be  corroborated  before  beinj? 


.  * 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY         125 

We  quote  the  decree  as  it  is  found  in  Canon  Law: 

"  THE  CRIME  OF  FALSIFICATION. 

"  Alchemies  are  here  prohibited  and  those  who  prac- 
tise them  or  procure  their  being  done  are  punished. 
"  They  must  forfeit  to  the  public  treasury  for  the  bene- 
"fit  of  the  poor  as  much  genuine  gold  and  silver  as 
1  'they  have  manufactured  of  the  false  or  adulterate 
"  metal.  If  they  have  not  sufficient  means  for  this,  the 
"penalty  may  be  changed  to  another  at  the  discretion 
"of  the  judge,  and  they  shall  be  considered  criminals. 
"  If  they  are  clerics,  they  shall  be  deprived  of  any  bene- 
"  fices  that  they  hold  and  be  declared  incapable  of  hold- 
ing others.  (See  also  the  Extravagant  of  the  same 
John  which  begins  with  the  word  '  Providens '  and 
"  is  placed  under  the  same  title.)1 

Poor  themselves,  the  alchemists  promise  riches 
"which  are  not  forthcoming;  wise  also  in  their  own 
"  conceit  they  fall  into  the  ditch  which  they  themselves 
4 'have  digged.  For  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  profes- 
"sors  of  this  art  of  alchemy  make  fun  of  each  other 
"because,  conscious  of  their  own  ignorance,  they  are 
"  surprised  at  those  who  say  anything  of  this  kind  about 
"  themselves  ;  when  the  truth  sought  does  not  come  to 
"them  they  fix  on  a  day  [for  their  experiment]  and 
"exhaust  all  their  arts;  then  they  dissimulate  [their 
"  failure]  so  that  finally,  though  there  is  no  such  thing 
"  in  nature,  they  pretend  to  make  genuine  gold  and  sil- 
"ver  by  a  sophistic  transmutation;  to  such  an  extent 
"does  their  damned  and  damnable  temerity  go  that 
"they  stamp  upon  the  base  metal  the  characters  of 

accepted  and  circulated,  we  should  hear  much  less  of  Papal  intolerance  and  of  Church 
opposition  to  science.  Even  a  dead  Pope  must  be  considered  as  a  man  whose  reputa- 
tion one  should  not  malign  without  good  reason  and  substantial  proof.  I  must  add 
that,  as  with  regard  to  the  other  Papal  documents  mentioned,  I  owe  the  copy  of  this 
decree  to  Father  Corbett,  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo  Seminary,  Overbrook,  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  am  indebted  to  him  besides  for  many  helpful  suggestions. 

1  The  decree  referred  to  here  was  issued  by  John  XXII.  against  the  counterfeiting: 
of  the  money  of  France.  The  fact  that  the  two  decrees  should  be  considered  by 
canonists  as  connected  in  subject  shows  just  what  was  thought  to  be  the  purport  of 
the  first,  namely,  to  prevent  the  debasement  of  the  currency  by  the  admixture  of 
adulterate  gold  as  well  as  to  protect  the  ignorant  from  imposition. 


126  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

"  public  money  for  believing  eyes,  and  it  is  only  in  this 
' '  way  that  they  deceive  the  ignorant  populace  as  to  the 
' '  alchemic  fire  of  their  furnace.  Wishing  to  banish  such 
' '  practices  for  all  time,  we  have  determined  by  this 
' '  formal  edict  that  whoever  shall  make  gold  or  silver  of 
' '  this  kind  or  shall  order  it  made,  provided  the  attempt 
"actually  follows,  or  whoever  shall  knowingly  assist 
"those  engaged  (actually)  in  such  a  process,  or  who- 
"  ever  shall  knowingly  make  use  of  such  gold  or  silver 
"  either  by  selling  it  or  giving  it  for  debt,  shall  be  com- 
"  pelled  as  a  penalty  to  pay  into  the  public  treasury,  to 
1 '  be  used  for  the  poor,  as  much  by  weight  of  genuine 
"gold  and  silver  as  there  may  be  of  alchemic  metal, 
"provided  it  be  proved  lawfully  that  they  have  been 
"guilty  in  any  of  the  aforesaid  ways;  for  those  who 
"  persist  in  making  alchemic  gold,  or,  as  has  been  said, 
' '  in  using  it  knowingly,  let  them  be  branded  with  the 
"mark  of  perpetual  infamy.  But  if  the  means  of  the 
"delinquents  are  not  sufficient  for  the  payment  of  the 
' '  amount  stated,  then  the  good  judgment  of  the  justice 
"may  commute  this  penalty  into  some  other  (as,  for 
' '  example,  imprisonment,  or  another  punishment,  ac- 
"  cording  to  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  difference  of 
"individuals,  and  other  circumstances.)  Those,  how- 
"ever,  who  in  their  regrettable  folly  go  so  far  as  not 
' '  only  to  sell  moneys  thus  made  but  even  despise  the 
' '  precepts  of  the  natural  law,  pass  the  bounds  of  their 
"art  and  violate  the  laws  by  deliberately  coining  or 
"  casting  or  haying  others  coin  or  cast  counterfeit  money 
' '  from  alchemic  gold  or  silver,  we  proclaim  as  coming 
"under  this  animadversion,  and  their  goods  shall  be 
1  *  confiscate,  and  they  shall  be  considered  as  criminals. 
"And  if  the  delinquents  are  clerics,  besides  the  afore- 
"  said  penalties  they  shall  be  deprived  of  any  benefices 
"  they  shall  hold  and  shall  be  declared  incapable  of  hold- 
"  ing  any  further  benefices/' a 

It  is  evident  that  John's  decree  against  "The  Crime 
of  Falsification  "  did  not  directly  forbid  chemistry,  nor 
alchemy  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  nor  did  it  in 
any  way  interfere  with  the  study  of  substances  to  de- 

1  The  Latin  text  of  this  decretal  will  be  found  entire  in  the  appendix. 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY         127 

termine  their  composition,  or  the  synthesis  of  materials 
to  produce  others,  provided  there  was  no  pretense  of 
making  gold  and  silver  in  order  to  obtain  genuine  gold 
and  silver  from  ignorant  dupes.  There  seems  to  be  no 
doubt  that  had  the  famous  scheme  to  obtain  gold  from 
sea  water,  which  caused  serious  loss  to  so  many  foolish 
and  even  poor  people  a  few  years  ago,  come  up  during 
the  time  of  John  XXII. ,  he  would  have  prevented  it 
from  being  so  lucrative  to  its  promoters,  by  publicly 
denouncing  them  and  promulgating  a  law  for  their 
punishment. 

It  may  be  considered  that  excommunication  was  not  a 
very  severe  penalty  for  such  dishonest  practices,  and 
that  the  sharpers  who  gave  themselves  to  such  a  profes- 
sion, which  would  be  about  that  of  the  confidence  or 
green  goods  men  of  our  time,  were  not  likely  to  be 
affected  much  by  this  merely  religious  deprivation.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  in  those  ages  of 
faith,  excommunication  became  an  extremely  telling 
social  punishment.  It  was  forbidden  that  anyone,  even 
nearest  and  dearest  friends,  should  have  anything  to  do 
with  the  one  excommunicated  until  the  ban  was  re- 
moved. It  was  bad  enough  in  a  town  where  everyone 
belonged  to  the  same  church,  and  all  went  to  church 
frequently,  to  be  forbidden  to  go  there  ;  it  was  infinitely 
worse,  however,  to  have  everybody  who  passed  refuse 
to  greet  you  or  have  relations  of  any  kind  with  you. 
President  Hadley,  of  Yale,  said,  not  long  since,  that 
social  ostracism  is  the  only  effective  punishment  for 
such  manifest  extra  legal  irregularities,  which  are 
yet  not  so  essentially  criminal  as  to  bring  those  guilty 
of  them  under  legal  punishment.  The  sentence  of  ex- 
communication was  an  effective  social  ostracism— the 


128  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

completest  possible.  This  is  an  aspect  of  excommunica- 
tions usually  missed,  but  well  deserving  of  study  by 
those  who  resent  the  use  of  such  an  instrument  by 
ecclesiastical  authorities.  Just  as  soon  as  the  man  re- 
pented of  what  he  had  done  and  promised  to  do  so  no 
more,  he  was  received  back  into  the  Church,  and  the 
ostracism  ceased,  so  long  as  he  did  not  relapse  into  his 
forbidden  ways. 

When  the  eminently  beneficial  character  of  this  Papal 
document  is  thus  appreciated,  it  is  indeed  painful  to 
have  to  realize,  that  for  its  issuance  John  has  been  held 
up  more  to  scorn  and  ridicule  than  perhaps  has  ever 
been  the  case  for  any  other  single  formal  document  that 
has  ever  been  issued  by  an  ecclesiastical  or  political 
authority.  He  was  simply  correcting  an  abuse  in  his 
day,  the  existence  of  which  we  recognize  and  would  like 
to  be  able  to  correct  in  ours.  For  this  eminently  proper 
exercise  of  the  Papal  power,  however,  his  whole  charac- 
ter has  been  called  into  question,  and  a  distinguished 
modern  educator  has  used  every  effort  to  place  him  in 
the  pillory  of  history,  as  one  of  the  men  who  have  done 
most  to  hamper  progress  in  science  and  education  in  all 
world  history.  The  amusing  thing  is  the  utter  inequal- 
ity between  the  document  itself  and  its  supposed  effects. 
Of  course  it  had  no  such  effect  as  President  White 
claims  for  it,  and,  indeed,  he  seems  never  to  have  seen 
the  document  in  its  entirety  before  it  was  called  for- 
cibly to  his  attention  long  after  his  declarations  with 
regard  to  it  were  published.  The  real  attitude  of  Pope 
John  XXII.  with  regard  to  education  and  the  sciences, 
which  was  exactly  the  reverse  of  that  predicated  of  him 
by  his  modern  colleague  in  education,  will  be  the  subject 
of  the  next  chapter. 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY        129 

There  is  another  document  of  John  XXII. ,  the  bull 
Super  Ulius  Specula,  that  has  been  sometimes  quoted, 
or  rather  misquoted,  and  which  indeed  at  first  I  was  in- 
clined to  think  was  the  bull  referred  to  by  Dr.  Cruik- 
shank.  This  second  Papal  document,  however,  was  not 
issued  until  1326.  It  is  concerned  entirely  with  the 
practice  of  magic.  The  Pope  knew  that  many  people, 
by  pretended  intercourse  with  the  devil  or  with  spirits 
of  various  kinds,  claimed  to  be  able  to  injure,  to  obtain 
precious  information,  to  interpret  the  future  and  the 
past,  and  to  clear  up  most  of  the  mysteries  that  bother 
mankind.  We  have  them  still  with  us— the  palmist,  the 
fortune-teller,  the  fake-spiritist.  In  order  to  prevent 
such  impostures,  John  issued  a  bull  forbidding  such 
practices  under  pain  of  excommunication.  It  is  almost 
needless  to  say  that  this  Papal  document  must  have 
effected  quite  as  much  good  for  the  people  at  large  as 
did  the  previous  one  forbidding  ' '  alchemies, "  which 
must  have  prevented  the  robbing  of  foolish  dupes  who 
were  taken  with  the  idea  that  the  alchemists  whom  they 
employed  could  make  gold  and  silver.  Of  this  second 
Papal  document,  this  time  really  a  bull,  we  shall,  be- 
cause President  White  has  give"n  it  an  even  falser  con- 
struction than  the  one  we  have  just  been  discussing, 
have  more  to  say  in  the  next  chapter. 

We  must  return,  however,  to  the  decretal  Spondent 
pariter,  —the  decree  supposed  to  have  forbidden  chem- 
istry ;  for  as  with  regard  to  the  bull  of  Boniface  VIII. , 
previously  discussed,  it  seems  that  it  is  necessary  not 
only  to  show  that  the  decree  was  not  actually  intended  by 
the  Popes  to  prohibit  chemistry,  but  also  it  will  have  to 
be  made  clear  that  it  was  not  misinterpreted  so  as  to 
hamper  chemical  investigation.  This  is  indeed  a  very 


130  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

curious  state  of  affairs  in  history.  First,  it  is  solemnly 
declared,  that  certain  bulls  and  Papal  documents  were 
directed  deliberately  against  the  sciences  of  anatomy  and 
chemistry  by  the  Head  of  the  Church,  who  wished  to 
prevent  the  development  of  these  sciences  lest  they 
should  lessen  his  power  over  his  people.  Then,  when  it 
is  shown  that  the  documents  in  question  have  no  such 
tenor,  but  are  simple  Papal  regulations  for  the  preven- 
tion of  abuses  which  had  arisen,  and  that  they  actually 
did  accomplish  much  good  for  generations  for  which 
they  were  issued,  the  reply  is  not  an  acknowledgement 
of  error,  but  an  insistence  on  the  previous  declaration, 
somewhat  in  this  form  :  ' '  Well,  the  Popes  may  not  have 
intended  it,  but  these  sciences,  as  a  consequence  of 
their  decrees,  did  not  develop,  and  the  Popes  must  be 
considered  as  to  blame  for  that."  Then,  instead  of 
showing  that  these  sciences  did  not  develop,  this  part  is 
assumed  and  the  whole  case  is  supposed  to  be  proved. 
Could  anything  well  be  more  preposterous.  And  this  is 
history  !  Nay,  it  is  even  the  history  of  science. 

When  I  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  decretal 
contained  none  of  the  things  it  was  said  to,  and  pub- 
lished the  text  of  it,  Dr.  White  very  calmly  replied : 
' '  Dr.  Walsh  has  indeed  correctly  printed  it,  and  I  notice 
no  flaw  in  his  translation. "  Instead  of  conceding,  how- 
ever, that  he  had  been  mistaken,  he  seemed  to  consider 
it  quite  sufficient  to  add,  ' '  I  have  followed  what  I  found 
to  be  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  standard  historians 
of  chemistry. "  He  did  not  mention  any  of  the  histo- 
rians, however.  I  asked  him  by  letter  to  name  some  of 
the  standard  historians  of  chemistry  who  made  this 
declaration,  but  though  I  received  a  courteous  reply,  it 
contained  no  names,  and,  indeed,  avoided  the  question 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY 


of  chemistry  entirely.  It  is  not  too  much  to  expect 
that  an  historian  shall  quote  his  authorities.  Dr.  White 
seems  to  be  above  this.  Some  documents  that  he  quotes 
are  distorted,  and  prove  on  examination,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  have  quite  a  different  meaning  to  that  which  he 
gives  them.  As  might  be  expected,  his  supposed  facts 
prove  to  have  as  little  foundation.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  he  completely  ignored  or  was  ignorant  of  the 
history  of  anatomy.  He  seems  to  have  been  just  as  ig- 
norant of  the  history  of  chemistry,  in  spite  of  his  confi- 
dent assurance  in  making  far-reaching  statements  with 
regard  to  it.  In  order  to  satisfy  myself,  I  went  through 
all  of  the  standard  histories  of  chemistry  in  German, 
English  and  French  that  are  available  in  the  libraries  of 
New  York  City,  and  I  failed  to  find  a  single  one  of  them 
which  contains  anything  that  might  be  supposed  even 
distantly  to  confirm  President  White's  assertion. 

I  may  have  missed  it,  and  shall  be  glad  to  know  if  I 
have.  I  cannot  do  more  than  cite  certain  of  them  that 
should  have  it  very  prominently,  if  Dr.  White's  asser- 
tion is  to  be  taken  at  its  face  value.  Here  are  some 
standard  historians  whom  I  have  searched  in  vain  for 
the  declaration  that  all  of  them  should  have. 

Kopp,  who  is  the  German  historian  of  chemistry, 
mentions  the  fact  that  there  was  much  less  cultivation 
of  chemistry  during  the  fourteenth  century  than  during 
the  thirteenth,  but  makes  no  mention  of  the  "bull  of 
Pope  John  as  being  responsible  for  it.  There  are  curious 
cycles  of  interest  in  particular  departments  of  science, 
with  intervals  of  comparative  lack  of  interest  that  can 
only  be  explained  by  the  diversion  of  human  mind  to  other 
departments  of  study.  This  seems  to  have  happened 
with  regard  to  chemistry  in  the  fourteenth  century. 


132  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Hoefer,  the  French  historian  of  chemistry,  mentions 
the  fact  that  Pope  John  XXII.  took  severe  measures 
against  the  alchemists  who  then  wandered  throughout 
the  country,  seeking  to  enrich  themselves  at  the  expense 
of  the  credulity  of  the  people.  He  evidently  knew  of 
this  decree  then,  but  he  says  nothing  of  its  forbidding 
or  being  misinterpreted,  so  as  to  seem  to  forbid  chemi- 
cal investigation.  Thomson,  the  English  historian  of 
chemistry,  has  no  mention  of  any  break  in  the  develop- 
ment of  chemical  science,  caused  by  any  action  of  the 
Popes,  though,  to  the  surprise  doubtless  of  most  readers, 
he  devotes  considerable  space  to  the  history  of  chemical 
investigation  during  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  cen- 
turies. Ernst  von  Meyer  mentions  the  fact  that  alchemy 
was  abused  by  charlatans,  in  order  to  make  pretended 
gold  and  silver,  and  notes  that  there  was  not  so  much 
interest  in  chemistry  in  the  fourteenth  as  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  but  does  not  ascribe  this  fact  to  the  bull 
of  Pope  John. 

I  expected  at  least  that  I  should  find  something  with 
regard  to  the  question  of  the  possible  influence  of  the 
bull  in  Berthelot's  ''History  of  Chemistry  in  the  Middle 
Ages."1  But  though  there  are  various  historical  topics 
treated  that  would  seem  to  imply  the  necessity  for  say- 
ing something  about  the  bull,  if  it  had  any  such  effect 
as  described,  yet  there  is  no  mention  of  it.  He  men- 
tions the  Franciscan  alchemists  of  northern  Italy,  who 
lived  about  this  time,  and  discusses  the  "Rosarium," 
written  very  probably  after  the  date  of  the  bull  by  a 
Franciscan  monk,  but  there  is  no  suggestion  as  to  any 
hampering  of  alchemy  by  Papal  or  other  ecclesiastical 
restrictions. 

1  Berthelot's  Histoire  de  la  Chimie  au  Moyen  Age.    Paris,  1893. 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY        133 

The  French  Grande  Encyclopedie  does  not  mention  it, 
nor  does  a  German  encyclopaedia,  also  consulted.  Even 
the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  in  its  article  on  alchemy, 
makes  no  mention  of  the  prohibition  of  alchemy  by  Pope 
John  XXII. ,  and  when  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica 
does  not  mention  any  scandal  with  regard  to  the  Popes, 
then  the  scandal  in  question  must  have  an  extremely 
slight  or  no  foundation. 

Of  course  this  is  what  might  be  expected.  Anyone 
who  reads  the  Papal  decree  can  see  at  once  that  it  has 
nothing  to  do  with,  or  say  about,  chemistry  or  chemical 
investigation.  Since,  however,  an  aspersion  has  been 
cast  upon  the  progress  of  chemistry  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  since  it  will  surely  be  thought  by  many  people 
that,  if  chemistry  did  not  happen  to  interest  mankind  at 
that  time,  it  must  have  been  because  the  Pope  was 
opposed  to  it  (for  such  seems  to  be  the  curious  chain  of 
reasoning  of  certain  scholars) ,  it  has  seemed  well  to  re- 
view briefly  the  story  of  chemistry  during  the  thir- 
teenth, fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  More  will 
be  said  about  it  in  the  chapter  on  Science  at  the  Medie- 
val Universities,  and  here  the  only  idea  is  to  bring  out 
the  fact  that  men  were  interested  in  what  we  now  call 
chemical  problems ;  that  whatever  interest  they  had 
was  absolutely  unhampered  by  ecclesiastical  opposition  ; 
that  indeed  the  very  men  who  did  the  best  work  in  this 
line,  and  their  work  is  by  no  means  without  significance 
in  the  history  of  science,  were  all  clergymen  ;  and  that 
most  of  them  were  in  high  favor  with  the  Popes,  and 
some  of  them  have  since  received  the  honor  of  being 
canonized  as  saints. 

Take  for  a  moment  the  example  of  the  great  English 
medieval  scientist  who  wrote  near  the  end  of  the  thir- 


134  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

teenth  century  a  work  on  science',  which  was  undertaken 
at  the  command  of  the  Pope  of  his  time,  to  show  him 
the  character  of  the  teaching  of  science  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford.  Roger  Bacon  defined  the  limits  of 
chemistry  very  accurately  and  showed  that  he  under- 
stood exactly  what  the  subject  and  methods  of  investi- 
gation must  be,  in  order  that  advance  should  be  made 
in  it.  Of  chemistry  he  speaks  in  his  "  Opus  Tertium  " 
in  the  following  words:  " There  is  a  science  which 
treats  of  the  generation  of  things  from ,  their  elements 
and  of  all  inanimate  things,  as  of  the  elements  and 
liquids,  simple  and  compound,  common  stones,  gems  and 
marble,  gold  and  other  metals,  sulphur,  salts,  pigments, 
lapis  lazuli,  minium  and  other  colors,  oils,  bitumen,  and 
infinite  more  of  which  we  find  nothing  in  the  books  of 
Aristotle  ;  nor  are  the  natural  philosophers  nor  any  of 
the  Latins  acquainted  with  these  things. " 

The  thirteenth  century  saw  the  rise  of  a  number  of 
great  physical  scientists,  who  made  observations  that 
anticipated  much  more  of  our  modern  views  on  scientific 
problems  than  is  usually  thought.  One  of  the  greatest 
of  the  chemists  of  the  thirteenth  century  was  Albert 
the  Great,  or  Albertus  Magnus,  as  he  is  more  familiarly 
called,  who  taught  for  many  years  at  the  University  of 
Paris.  He  was  a  theologian  as  well  as  a  physician  and 
a  scientist.  His  works  have  been  published  in  twenty- 
one  folio  volumes,  which  will  give  some  idea  of  the  im- 
mense industry  of  the  man.  Those  relating  to  chemistry 
are  as  follows  :  Concerning  Metals  and  Minerals  ;  Con- 
cerning Alchemy ;  A  Treatise  on  the  Secrets  of  Chem- 
istry ;  A  Brief  Compend  on  the  Origin  of  the  Metals  ; 
A  Concordance,  that  is,  a  Collection,  of  Observations 
from  Many  Sources,  with  Regard  to  the  Philosopher's 


SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY        135 

Stone  ;  A  Treatise  on  Compounds  ;  a  book  of  eight  chap- 
ters on  the  Philosopher's  Stone.  Most  of  these  are  to  be 
found  in  his  works  under  the  general  heading  "  Theat- 
rum  Chemicum."  Thomson,  in  his  "  History  of  Chem- 
istry/' says,  that  they  are,  in  general,  plain  and  intel- 
ligible. Albertus  Magnus's  most  famous  pupil  was  the 
celebrated  Thomas  Aquinas.  Three  of  his  works  are  on 
chemistry  :  The  Intimate  Secrets  of  Alchemy  ;  on  the 
Essence  and  Substance  of  Minerals ;  and  finally,  later 
in  life,  the  Wonders  of  Alchemy.  It  is  in  this  last  work, 
it  is  said,  that  the  word  amalgam  occurs  for  the  first 
time.  While  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Albertus  Magnus 
were  working  in  France  and  Germany,  Roger  Bacon 
was  doing  work  of  similar  nature  at  Oxford  in  England. 
Altogether,  he  has  eighteen  treatises  on  chemical  prob- 
lems. Some  of  these  contain  wonderful  anticipations  of 
modern  chemistry.  After  Roger  Bacon  came  Raymond 
Lully,  who  wrote,  in  all,  sixteen  treatises  on  chemical 
subjects.  At  about  the  same  time,  Arnold  of  Villanova 
was  teaching  medicine  at  Paris  and  paying  special  atten- 
tion to  chemistry.  From  him  there  are  twenty-one 
treatises  on  chemical  subjects  still  extant.  Arnold  of 
Villanova  died  on  the  way  to  visit  Pope  Clement  V., 
the  immediate  predecessor  of  John,  who  lay  sick  unto 
death  at  Avignon. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  there  was  no  spirit  of  opposi- 
tion to  chemistry  gradually  forming  itself  in  ecclesiasti- 
cal circles,  and  about  to  be  expressed  in  a  decree  by 
John.  The  chemists  of  the  thirteenth  century  had  been 
among  the  most  distinguished  churchmen  of  the  period. 
One  of  them  at  least,  Thomas  Aquinas,  had  been  de- 
clared a  saint.  Another,  Albertus  Magnus,  has  been 
given  the  title  of  Blessed,  signifying  that  his  life  and 


136  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

works  are  worthy  of  all  veneration.  Pope  John  XXII. 
had  as  a  young  man  been  a  student  of  these  men  at  the 
University  of  Paris,  and  would  surely  have  imbibed  the 
tradition  of  their  interest  in  the  physical  sciences.  That 
he  should  have  unlearned  all  their  lessons  seems  out  of 
the  question. 

It  remains,  then,  to  see  whether  there  was  any  dimi- 
nution of  the  interest  in  chemistry  after  the  issue  of  this 
decree  by  John.  In  the  fourteenth  century  we  find  the 
two  Hollanduses,  probably  father  and  son,  whose  lives 
run  during  most  of  the  century,  doing  excellent  work  in 
science.  They  frequently  refer  to  the  writings  of  Ar- 
nold of  Villanova,  so  that  they  certainly  post-date  him. 
From  them  altogether,  we  have  some  eleven  treatises 
on  various  chemical  subjects.  Some  of  these,  especially 
with  regard  to  minerals,  have  very  clear  descriptions  of 
processes  of  treatment  which  serve  to  show  that  their 
knowledge  was  by  no  means  merely  theoretical  or  ac- 
quired only  from  books. 

Probably  before  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century 
there  was  born  a  man  who  must  be  considered  the 
father  of  modern  pharmaceutical  chemistry.  This  was 
Basil  Valentine,  the  German  Benedictine  monk,  whose 
best  known  work  is  the  "The  Triumphal  Chariot  of  An- 
timony/' Its  influence  can  be  best  appreciated  from 
the  fact  that  it  introduced  the  use  of  antimony  into 
medicine  definitely,  and  that  substance  continued  to  be 
used  for  centuries,  so  that  it  was  not  until  practically 
our  own  generation  that  the  true  limitations  of  its  use- 
fulness were  found.  Valentine  described  the  process  of 
making  muriatic  acid,  which  he  called  the  spirit  of  salt, 
and  taught  how  to  obtain  alcohol  in  concentrated  form. 
Altogether,  this  monk-alchemist,  who  was  really  the 


•      SUPPOSED  PROHIBITION  OF  CHEMISTRY        137 

first  of  the  chemists,  left  twenty-three  treatises,  some  of 
them  good-sized  books,  on  various  subjects  in  chemistry.1 
It  does  not  look,  then,  as  though  chemistry  was  much 
neglected  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries. 

One  step  more  in  the  history  remains  to  be  taken, 
which  brings  us  down  to  a  man  who  is  more  familiar  to 
modern  physicians— Paracelsus.  Paracelsus  received 
his  education  just  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, before  the  Reformation  began.  He  was  not  a 
man,  as  those  who  know  his  character  will  thoroughly 
appreciate,  to  confess  that  he  had  received  much  assist- 
ance from  others.  He  does  mention,  however,  that  he 
was  helped  in  his  chemical  studies  by  the  Abbot  Trit- 
hemius,  of  Spanheim ;  by  Bishop  Scheit,  of  Stettbach ; 
by  Bishop  Erhardt,  of  Lavanthol ;  by  Bishop  Nicholas, 
of  Hippon  ;  and  by  Bishop  Matthew  Schacht. 

We  have  been  able  to  follow,  then,  the  development 
of  chemistry  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centu- 
ries down  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  and  find  no- 
where any  lessening  of  the  ardor  for  chemical  studies, 
though  most  of  the  great  names  in  the  science  continue 
to  be,  as  they  were  before  the  decree  was  issued,  those 
of  distinguished  ecclesiastics.  John's  decree,  then,  was 
neither  intended  to  hamper  the  development  of  chem- 
istry, nor  did  it  accidentally  prevent  those  who  were 
most  closely  in  touch  with  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
from  pursuing  their  studies.  Those,  of  course,  who 
knew  anything  of  the  character  of  the  author,  would 
not  expect  it  to  interfere  with  the  true  progress  of 
science.  As  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  Pope 
John  XXII.  was  really  one  of  the  most  liberal  patrons 
of  education  and  of  science  in  history. 

1  For  a  brief  sketch  of  his  career  see  my  Catholic  Churchmen  in  Science,  Dolphin 
Press,  Philadelphia,  1906. 


A   PAPAL   PATRON    OF   EDUCATION   AND 
SCIENCE. 

The  question  of  the  Papal  bull  supposed  to  forbid 
chemistry,  or  at  least  its  mother  science,  alchemy,  has 
necessarily  brought  into  prominence  in  this  volume  the 
name  of  Pope  John  XXII.  Few  Popes  in  history  have 
been  the  subject  of  more  bitter  denunciation  than  John. 
Writers  on  the  history  of  the  Papacy  who  were  them- 
selves not  members  of  the  Catholic  Church,  have  been 
almost  a  unit  in  condemning  him  for  many  abuses  of 
Papal  power,  especially  such  as  were  associated  with  the 
employment  of  Church  privileges  for  the  accumulation 
of  money.  Certain  Catholic  historians  even  have  not 
found  themselves  able  to  rid  their  appreciation  of  the 
character  of  Pope  John  from  similar  objections.  It  is 
acknowledged  that  he  was  one  of  the  most  learned  men 
of  his  time.  It  is  confessed  that  he  was  one  of  the  most 
abstemious  of  men.  Indeed,  in  this  respect  he  has  been 
very  appropriately  compared  with  Pope  Leo  XIII.  He 
did  succeed  in  setting  the  Papacy  on  a  firm  foundation 
in  Avignon,  and  did  arrange  the  financial  economy  of 
the  Church  in  such  a  way  that  large  amounts  of  money 
were  bound  to  accumulate  in  the  Papal  treasury. 

This  has  been  the  main  element  of  the  accusations 
against  him.  A  prominent  American  encyclopaedia 
summed  up  his  character  very  trenchantly  as  follows  : 
1 '  He  was  learned  in  Canon  Law  and  was  remarkable 
for  avarice. "  Many  have  not  hesitated  to  say  that  even 
his  condemnation  of  alchemy  had  for  its  main  purpose 

(138) 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  139 

the  idea  of  added  revenues  for  the  Papal  See,  by  the 
fines  inflicted,  and  by  the  confiscation  of  the  goods  of 
those  condemned  as  well  as  by  the  Court  fees  in  the 
matter,  though  there  is  nothing  in  the  decree  to  justify 
such  an  opinion,  and  we  have  pointed  out  that  the  fines 
collected  were,  according  to  the  document  itself,  to  be 
given  to  the  poor. 

With  the  ecclesiastical  aspects  of  Pope  John's  charac- 
ter we  have  nothing  to  do  here.  It  would  require  a 
large  volume  by  itself  properly  to  tell  the  story  of  his 
life,  for  he  was  one  of  the  most  influential  men  of  an 
important  time,  and  though  he  ascended  the  Papal 
throne  when  he  was  past  seventy,  he  lived  to  be  ninety, 
and  his  pontificate  is  filled  with  evidence  of  his  strenuous 
activity  till  the  end  of  his  life.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
the  regulations  for  which  he  is  responsible  with  regard 
to  the  Papal  finances  eventually  led  to  very  serious 
abuses  in  the  Church.  It  is  easy  to  understand,  how- 
ever, how  special  arrangements  had  to  be  made  for  the 
support  of  the  Holy  See  at  Avignon.  Pope  John  XXII.  's 
predecessor,  Clement,  was  the  first  Pope  who,  because 
of  the  unsettled  state  of  affairs  in  Italy  and  the  influ- 
ence of  the  French  King,  resolved  to  live  at  Avignon 
instead  of  Rome.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  ordi- 
nary sources  of  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  Papal 
Court,  which  required  comparatively  as  expensive  an 
establishment  then  as  now,  were  more  or  less  cut  off. 
During  the  first  pontificate  at  Avignon,  this  proved  a 
serious  drawback  to  ecclesiastical  efficiency.  In  Pope 
John's  time  the  necessity  for  providing  revenues  became 
acute.  Besides,  he  wished  to  make  the  new  Papal  City 
as  worthy  of  the  Holy  See  as  the  old  one  had  been.  To 
him  is  largely  due  the  development  of  Avignon,  which 


140  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

occurred  during  the  fourteenth  century.  The  abuses 
which  his  regulations  in  this  matter  led  to  did  not  cul- 
minate in  his  time,  but  came  later.  The  revenues 
obtained  by  him  were,  as  we  shall  see,  used  to  excellent 
purpose,  and  were  applied  to  such  educational  and  mis- 
sionary uses  as  would  eminently  meet  the  approval  of 
the  most  demanding  of  critics  in  modern  times. 

John  was  a  liberal  and  discriminating  patron  of  learn- 
ing and  of  education  in  his  time.  He  helped  colleges  in 
various  parts  of  the  world,  established  a  college  in  the 
East,  and  sent  out  many  missionaries  at  his  own  ex- 
pense. These  missionaries  proved  as  efficient  as  modern 
travelers  in  adding  to  the  knowledge  of  the  East  at  that 
time,  and  practically  laid  the  foundations  of  the  science 
of  geography.1 

What  is  of  special  interest  to  us  here,  however,  in 
this  volume,  is  the  fact  that  Pope  John  gave  all  the 
weight  of  the  Papal  authority,  the  most  important  in- 
fluence of  the  time  in  Europe,  to  the  encouragement  of 
medical  schools,  the  maintenance  of  a  high  standard 
in  them,  and  the  development  of  scientific  medicine. 
At  this  time  medicine  included  many  of  the  physical 
sciences  as  we  know  them  at  the  present  time.  Botany, 
mineralogy,  climatology,  even  astrology,  as  astronomy 
was  then  called,  were  the  subjects  of  study  by  physi- 
cians, the  last  named  because  of  the  supposed  influence 
of  the  stars  on  the  human  constitution.  Because  of  his 
encouragement  of  medical  schools  and  his  emphatic  in- 
sistence on  their  maintaining  high  standards,  Pope  John 
must  be  commended  as  a  patron  of  science  and  as  prob- 

1  Those  who  are  interested  in  the  wonderful  things  accomplished  for  geography  by 
these  missionary  travelers  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  will  find  a 
brief  account  of  them  in  the  chapter  on  Geography  and  Exploration  in  my  book  on 
The  Thirteenth,  Greatest  of  Centuries. 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  141 

ably  having  exerted  the  most  beneficial  influence  in  his 
time  on  education. 

This  is  of  course  very  different  from  what  is  usually 
said  of  this  Pope.  Prof.  White  can  scarcely  find  words 
harsh  enough  to  apply  to  him,  because  of  his  supposed 
superstition  and  the  influence  which  he  had  upon  his 
time  in  leading  men's  minds  away  from  science  and  into 
the  foolish  absurdities  of  superstitious  practices.  Pope 
John  XXII.  is  one  of  the  special  betes  noires  of  the  some- 
time President  of  Cornell.  Yet,  I  am  sure  that  when  the 
formal  documents  which  Pope  John  has  left  relating  to 
education  and  science  are  read  by  modern  educators, 
they  cannot  help  but  consider  him  as  one  of  their  most 
enterprising  colleagues  in  the  realm  of  education.  In- 
deed, a  number  of  his  bulls  read  very  much  like  the 
documents  that  issue  occasionally  from  college  presidents 
with  regard  to  the  maintenance  of  standards  in  educa- 
tion, and  his  encouragement  of  the  giving  of  the  best 
possible  opportunities  for  scientific  and  literary  studies, 
and  especially  that  the  smaller  colleges  shall  be  equal  as 
far  as  possible  to  the  greater  institutions  of  learning, 
will  arouse  the  sympathetic  interest  of  every  educator 
of  the  modern  day. 

The  documents  that  I  shall  quote  in  translations  (the 
originals  may  be  found  in  the  appendix)  will  show  that 
the  Pope  wanted  the  doctorates  in  philosophy  and  in 
medicine  to  be  given  only  after  seven  years  of  study,  at 
least  four  of  which  were  to  be  devoted  to  the  post- 
graduate work  in  the  special  branch  selected.  He 
wished,  moreover,  to  insist  on  the  necessity  for  pre- 
liminary education.  He  wanted  the  permission  to  teach 
these  branches,  which  in  that  day  was  equivalent  to 
our  term  of  doctorate,  to  be  given  in  all  institutions  for 


142  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

the  same  amount  of  work  and  after  similar  tests.  These 
are  just  the  matters  that  have  occupied  the  thoughts  of 
university  presidents  for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century, 
and  have  been  the  subjects  of  discussion  in  the  meetings 
of  various  college  and  university  associations.  Pope 
John's  bulls  would  be  interesting  documents  to  have 
read  before  such  associations  even  at  the  present  time, 
and  would  form  excellent  suggestive  material  on  which 
the  discussion  of  the  necessity  for  maintaining  college 
standards  might  well  be  founded.  This  is  so  different 
from  what  is  usually  thought  in  the  matter,  that  person- 
ally I  have  found  it  even  rather  amusing.  It  is  not 
amusing,  however,  to  think  that  this  great  progressive, 
yet  conservative  educator  should  have  been  so  mis- 
represented by  modern  educators  and  historians,  simply 
because  they  did  not  study  the  man  in  his  own  writings, 
but  knew  him  only  at  second  hand  from  those  who 
judged  his  character  from  another  standpoint. 

All  this  will  show  John  as  really  one  of  the  greatest 
Popes  not  only  in  the  century  in  which  he  lived,  but  as 
distinguished  as  only  a  comparatively  small  number 
have  been  among  the  successors  of  Peter.  Though  he 
ascended  the  Papal  throne  at  the  age  of  seventy,  the 
next  twenty  years  were  full  of  work  of  all  kinds,  and 
John's  wonderful  capacity  for  work  stamps  him  as  one 
of  the  great  men  of  all  time.  It  is  a  well-known  rule, 
constantly  kept  in  mind  by  Catholic  students  of  history, 
that  the  Popes  against  whom  the  most  objections  are 
urged  by  non-Catholic  historians  are  practically  always 
found,  on  close  and  sympathetic  study,  to  be  striking  ex- 
amples of  men  who  at  least  labored  to  accomplish  much. 
As  a  rule,  they  strove  to  correct  abuses,  and  as  a  con- 
sequence made  bitter  enemies,  who  left  behind  them 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  143 

many  contemporary  expressions  of  disapproval.  Any 
contemporary  authority  is  somehow  supposed  to  be  in- 
fallible. We  forget,  when  a  man  tries  to  do  good  he  is 
likely  to  meet  with  bitter  opposition  from  many.  If 
their  expressions  are  taken  seriously  by  historians  who 
write  with  the  purpose  of  finding  just  as  little  good  and 
just  as  much  evil  as  possible  in  a  particular  character, 
the  resulting  appreciation  is  likely  to  be  rather  far  from 
the  truth.  If  some  of  the  criticisms  of  our  present  Pres- 
ident are  only  preserved  long  enough,  how  easy  it  will 
be  for  a  future  historian  who  may  have  the  purpose  of 
showing  how  much  of  evil  began  as  the  result  of  his 
policy,  to  find  material  on  which  to  build  up  his  thesis. 
Men  who  do  nothing  make  no  enemies  and  also  make  no 
mistakes.  Fortunately,  however,  doing  things  is  its  own 
justification. 

John  XXII.  had  had  eminent  opportunities  for  the 
acquisition  of  an  education  as  thorough,  and  a  culture  as 
broad,  as  any  that  might  be  afforded  even  by  our  educa- 
tional opportunities  at  the  present  time.  He  had  been 
many  years  at  the  University  of  Paris  ;  he  had  traveled 
in  England,  a  rare  occurrence  in  those  days,  and  had 
spent  most  of  his  time  while  there  at  Oxford  ;  he  had 
also  passed  several  years  in  Italy  and  was  familiar  with 
educational  conditions  down  there.  He  certainly  did 
more  for  education  than  any  man  of  his  generation. 
He  had  the  greatest  of  opportunities,  but  it  cannot  but 
be  said  that  he  took  them,  very  wonderfully.  There  are 
very  few  in  all  the  history  of  education  who  have  insisted 
as  he  on  the  important  principles  of  the  necessity  for  care- 
ful training,  for  the  maintenance  of  high  standards  in 
examination  and  degree-giving,  and  for  the  endeavor  to 
bring  the  large  universities  in  intimate  contact  with  the 


144  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

small  ones,  to  the  benefit  especially  of  the  latter,  though, 
as  we  know  now,  always  also  to  the  reactionary  advan- 
tage of  the  important  institutions.  All  this  is  to  be  found 
in  the  documentary  history  of  a  man  who  has  been, set 
up  as  an  object  of  scorn  and  derision  by  modern  educa- 
tors, who  surely,  if  they  knew  the  actual  facts,  would 
be  sympathetic,  and  not  antipathetic  as  they  have  been. 

It  seems  too  bad  that  it  was  just  this  man  that  should 
have  been  picked  out  for  the  slander  that  he  had  pre- 
vented the  development  of  chemistry  by  a  Papal  decree, 
which  proves  on  examination  to  be  only  an  added  evi- 
dence of  his  beneficent  care  for  his  people.  But  this  is 
not  the  only  charge  that  has  been  brought  against  Pope 
John  XXII.  President  White  has  painted  his  character 
in  the  worst  possible  colors.  Even  after  his  attention  was 
called  to  the  fact  that  the  document  supposed  to  prohibit 
chemistry  did  not  have  any  of  the  meaning  which  he 
attributed  to  it  in  his  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science 
With  Theology  in  Christendom,  he  still  could  find  terms 
scarcely  black  enough  in  which  to  paint  Pope  John,  and 
recurs  to  other  documents  issued  by  that  Pope  to  prove 
his  assertions.  Strangely  enough,  especially  after  the 
warning  of  having  had  to  acknowledge  that  one  quota- 
tion from  him  was  entirely  wrong,  he  proceeds  to  quote 
another  bull  by  the  same  Pope,  that  he  has  evidently 
never  read,  and  his  remarks  with  regard  to  it  show  that 
he  never  took  the  trouble  to  learn  anything  about  this 
Pope  by  reading  any  of  the  original  documents  that  he 
issued,  but  depends  entirely  on  second-hand  authorities. 
He  says  :— 

"It  is  a  pity  that  Dr.  Walsh  does  not  quote  in  full 
Pope  John's  other  and  much  more  interesting  bull,  Super 
illius  specula,  of  1326.  One  would  suppose  from  the 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  145 

doctor's  account  that  this  Pontiff  was  a  kindly  and  ra- 
tional scholar  seeking  to  save  the  people  from  the  clutch 
of  superstition.  The  bull  of  1326  shows  Pope  John  him- 
self, in  spite  of  his  infallibility,  sunk  in  superstition,  the 
most  abject  and  debasing  ;  for,  in  this  bull,  supposed  to 
be  inspired  from  wisdom  from  on  high,  Pope  John  com- 
plains that  both  he  and  his  flock  are  in  danger  of  their 
lives  by  the  arts  of  the  sorcerers.  He  declares  that  such 
sorcerers  can  shut  up  devils  in  mirrors,  finger-rings  and 
phials,  and  kill  men  and  women  by  a  magic  word  ;  that 
they  had  tried  to  kill  him  by  piercing  a  waxen  image  of 
him  with  needles,  in  the  name  of  the  devil.  He  there- 
fore, not  only  in  this  bull,  but  in  brief  after  brief,  urged 
bishops,  inquisitors  and  other  authorities,  sacred  and 
secular,  to  hunt  down  the  miscreants  who  thus  afflicted 
the  faithful,  and  he  especially  increased  the  power  of 
the  inquisitors  in  various  parts  of  Europe  for  this  pur- 
pose. This  bull  it  was  indeed,  and  others  to  the  same 
purpose,  which  stimulated  that  childish  fear  and  hatred 
against  the  investigation  of  nature  which  was  felt  for 
centuries  and  which  caused  chemistry  to  be  known  more 
and  more  as  one  of  the  '  seven  devilish  arts. ' ' 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  an  awful  arraign- 
ment of  a  Pope.  The  bull  in  question  is  quoted  so  con- 
fidently under  its  Latin  title  that  anyone  who  reads  this 
paragraph  must  necessarily  conclude  that  it  contains  all 
that  President  White  says,  and  that  he  was  fresh  from 
the  reading  of  it.  I  may  say  that,  though  I  had  already 
found  that  two  other  Papal  documents  had  been  utterly 
misrepresented  in  President  White's  references,  I  could 
not  bring  myself  to  think  that  the  same  thing  might  be 
true  with  regard  to  this  third  Papal  document  cited  by 
him.  After  having  had  two  lessons  in  the  necessity  for 


146  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

careful  collation  of  his  references  to  his  authorities,  I 
did  not  think  it  possible  for  him  to  make  another  mis- 
quotation, if  possible,  more  serious  than  the  preceding 
examples.  Though  I  had  by  me,  thanks  to  my  good 
friend  Father  Corbett,  of  St.  Charles  Seminary,  Over- 
brook,  Pa.,  a  copy  of  this  bull  at  the  time  I  wrote 
an  answer  to  some  of  President  White's  curious  wan- 
derings into  the  history  of  anatomy  and  chemistry, 
I  did  not  consult  it,  for  I  felt  sure  that  it  must  contain 
the  expressions  which  were  so  confidently  quoted.  My 
surprise  can  be  better  imagined  than  described  when  on 
reading  the  bull  I  found  that  it  contained  practically  no 
foundation  for  the  awful  charges  made  by  President 
White.  I  had  been  given  another  lesson  in  the  differ- 
ence between  traditional  and  documentary  history,  the 
significance  of  which  will,  I  hope,  be  appreciated  by 
others.  It  led  me  to  consult  further  bulls  of  John  XXII. , 
which  bring  out  his  character  better  than  any  modern 
historian  possibly  can,  and  which  serve  to  show  that,  far 
from  being  an  obscurantist  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  he 
was  deeply  interested  in  education,  expressed  his  appre- 
ciation for  it  on  many  occasions  in  the  highest  terms, 
encouraged  his  people  to  seek  it,  in  any  and  every  form, 
scientific  as  well  as  literary  and  philosophic,  and  stated 
confidently  that  education  would  surely  redound  to 
the  benefit  of  the  Church  and  deserved  to  be  the  special 
object  of  ecclesiastical  favor. 

First,  however,  let  me  quote  the  bull  Super  Ulius  spe- 
cula, of  which  President  White  has  said  so  much.  I 
present  a  close,  almost  literal,  translation  of  the  docu- 
ment as  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  collections  of  Thomas- 
setti  and  Coquelines.  As  President  White  conceded  that 
my  translation  of  the  previous  document  of  Pope  John 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  147 

with  regard  to  alchemy  was  flawless,  I  shall  be  careful 
not  to  undo  his  compliment.1 

"  Seeking  to  discover  how  the  sons  of  men  know  and 
serve  God  by  the  practice  of  the  Christian  religion,  we 
look  down  from  the  watch-tower  where,  though  un- 
worthy, we  have  been  placed  by  the  favoring  clemency 
of  Him  who  made  the  first  man  after  His  own  image 
and  likeness  ;  setting  him  over  earthly  things  ;  adorning 
him  with  heavenly  virtues  ;  recalling  him  when  a  wan- 
derer ;  bestowing  on  him  a  law ;  freeing  him  from 
slavery  ;  finding  him  when  he  was  lost ;  and  finally  ran- 
soming him  from  captivity  by  the  merit  of  His  passion. 
With  grief  we  discover,  and  the  very  thought  of  it 
wrings  our  soul  with  anguish,  that  there  are  many 
Christians  only  in  name  ;  many  who  turn  away  from 
the  light  which  once  was  theirs,  and  allow  their  minds 
to  be  so  clouded  with  the  darkness  of  error  as  to  enter 
into  a  league  with  death  and  a  compact  with  hell.  They 
sacrifice  to  demons  and  adore  them,  they  make  or  cause 
to  be  made  images,  rings,  mirrors,  phials  or  some  such 
things  in  which  by  the  art  of  magic  evil  spirits  are  to  be 
enclosed.  From  them  they  seek  and  receive  replies,  and 
ask  aid  in  satisfying  their  evil  desires.  For  a  foul  pur- 
pose they  submit  to  the  foulest  slavery.  Alas  !  this 
deadly  malady  is  increasing  more  than  usual  in  the  world 
and  inflicting  greater  and  greater  ravages  on  the  flock 
of  Christ. 

"SECTION  L— Since,  therefore,  we  are  bound  by  the 
duty  of  our  pastoral  office  to  bring  back  to  the  fold  of 
Christ  the  sheep  who  are  wandering  through  devious 
ways  and  to  exclude  from  the  Lord's  flock  those  who  are 
diseased  lest  they  should  infect  the  rest,  We,  by  this 
edict,  which,  in  accordance  with  the  counsel  of  our 
brother  bishops,  is  to  remain  in  perpetual  vigor,  warn 
all  and  in  virtue  of  holy  obedience  and  under  pain  of 
anathema  enjoin  on  all  those  who  have  been  regenerated 
in  the  waters  of  baptism  not  to  inculcate  or  study  any 
of  the  perverse  teachings  we  have  mentioned,  or,  what 
is  more  to  be  condemned,  practise  them  in  any  manner 
upon  any  one. 

1  The  full  Latin  text  of  this  bull  will  be  found  in  the  appendix. 


148  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

"SECTION  II.  —  And  because  it  is  just  that  those  who 
by  their  deeds  make  mockery  of  the  Most  High  should 
meet  with  punishments  worthy  of  their  transgressions 
we  pronounce  the  sentence  of  excommunication  which  it 
is  our  will  they  shall  ipso  facto  incur,  who  shall  presume 
to  act  contrary  to  our  salutary  warnings  and  commands. 
And  we  firmly  decree  that  in  addition  to  the  above  pen- 
alties a  process  shall  be  begun  before  competent  judges 
for  the  infliction  of  all  and  every  penalty  which  heretics 
are  subject  to  according  to  law,  except  confiscation  of 
goods,  against  such  as  being  duly  admonished  of  the 
foregoing  or  any  of  the  foregoing  practices,  have  not 
within  eight  days  from  the  time  when  the  admoni- 
tion was  given  amended  their  lives  in  the  aforesaid 
matters. 

"SECTION  III. —Moreover,  since  it  is  proper  that  no 
opportunity  or  occasion  should  be  given  for  such  flagi- 
tious practices,  We,  in  conformity  with  the  advice  of  our 
brother  bishops,  ordain  and  command  that  no  one  shall 
presume  to  have  or  to  hold  books  or  writing  of  any  kind 
containing  any  of  the  before-mentioned  errors  or  to 
make  a  study  of  them.  On  the  contrary,  we  desire  and 
in  virtue  of  holy  obedience  we  impose  the  precept  upon 
all,  that  whoever  shall  have  any  of  the  aforesaid  writ- 
ings or  books  shall,  within  the  space  of  eight  days  from 
their  knowledge  of  our  edict  in  this  matter,  destroy  and 
burn  them  and  every  part  thereof  absolutely  and  com- 
pletely ;  otherwise,  we  decree  that  they  incur  the  sen- 
tence of  excommunication  ipso  facto  and,  when  the  evi- 
dence is  clear,  that  other  and  greater  penalties  shall  be 
inflicted  upon  culprits  of  this  kind/' 

Now  here  is  a  Papal  document  that,  far  from  contain- 
ing any  of  the  superstitions  that  President  White  so  out- 
spokenly declares  it  to  contain,  is  a  worthy  expression 
of  the  fatherly  feelings  of  the  head  of  Christendom  that 
might  well  have  been  issued  at  even  the  most  enlight- 
ened period  of  the  world's  history.  The  two  sentences 
on  which  all  of  President  White's  serious  accusation  is 
founded  are  simple  expressions  of  the  Pope's  solicitude 
for  his  flock  on  hearing  of  some  of  the  practices  that 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  149 

some  are  said  to  give  themselves  up  to.  He  does  not 
say  even  that  sorcerers  can  shut  up  devils  in  mirrors, 
finger-rings  and  phials,  but  uses  the  hypothetical  ex- 
pression that  in  these  things,  by  magic  art,  evil  spirits 
are  to  be  enclosed.  The  bull  has  no  reference  at  all  to 
the  killing  of  men  and  women  by  a  magic  word,  and 
where  President  White  found  that  Pope  John  declares 
in  this  bull  that  sorcerers  had  tried  to  kill  him  by  pierc- 
ing a  waxen  image  of  him  with  needles  in  the  name  of  the 
devil,  it  is  impossible  to  understand  ;  I  should  like  very 
much  to  know  what  his  authority  is,  because  then  it 
could  be  refuted  in  its  source.  As  it  is,  Dr.  White  said 
it  was  in  the  bull,  and  now  every  one  can  see  for  him- 
self that  it  is  not. 

Let  us  go  a  step  further  and  take  President  White's 
single  sentence,  "One  would  suppose  from  the  doctor's 
(Dr.  Walsh's)  account  that  this  Pontiff  was  a  kindly  and 
rational  scholar  seeking  to  save  the  people  from  the 
clutch  of  superstition,"  and  let  us  illustrate  the  phrase 
"a  kindly  and  rational  scholar  "  by  some  documents  is- 
sued by  Pope  John  XXII.  Take  for  instance  the  special 
bull  issued  by  him  for  the  confirmation  of  the  establish- 
ment of  chairs  in  canon  and  civil  law,  and  the  founding 
of  masterships  in  medicine  and  in  arts  in  the  University 
of  Perugia  by  which  he  also  conveyed  the  authority  to 
confer  the  degrees  of  doctor  and  bachelor  in  all  these 
faculties  on  those  who  were  found  worthy  after  careful 
examinations.  In  the  preamble  of  this  bull  we  shall  find 
abundant  evidence  of  Pope  John's  kindly  and  rational 
scholarship,  of  his  eminent  desire  to  encourage  educa- 
tion in  all  its  forms,  literary  and  scientific,  and  to  make 
the  people  of  his  time  understand  how  valuable  he  con- 
sidered education,  not  only  for  the  sake  of  the  individ- 


150  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

uals  who  might  acquire  it,  but  also  for  the  Church  and 
for  the  cause  of  religion. 
This  bull  was  issued  Feb.  18,  1321 : 

"While  with  deep  feelings  of  solicitous  consideration 
we  mentally  resolve  how  precious  the  gift  of  science  is 
and  how  desirable  and  glorious  is  its  possession,  since 
through  it  the  darkness  of  ignorance  is  put  to  flight  and 
the  clouds  of  error  completely  done  away  with  so  that 
the  trained  intelligence  of  students  disposes  and  orders 
their  acts  and  modes  of  life  in  the  light  of  truth,  we  are 
moved  by  a  very  great  desire  that  the  study  of  letters 
in  which  the  priceless  pearl  of  knowledge  is  found 
should  everywhere  make  praiseworthy  progress,  and 
should  especially  flourish  more  abundantly  in  such  places 
as  are  considered  to  be  more  suitable  and  fitting  for  the 
multiplication  of  the  seeds  and  salutary  germs  of  right 
teaching.  Whereas  some  time  ago,  Pope  Clement  of 
pious  memory,  our  predecessor,  considering  the  purity 
of  faith  and  the  excelling  devotion  which  the  city  of 
Perugia  belonging  to  our  Papal  states  is  recognized  to 
have  maintained  for  a  long  period  towards  the  church, 
wishing  that  these  might  increase  from  good  to  better 
in  the  course  of  time,  deemed  it  fitting  and  equitable 
that  this  same  city,  which  had  been  endowed  by  Divine 
Grace  with  the  prerogatives  of  many  special  favors,  should 
be  distinguished  by  the  granting  of  university  powers, 
in  order  that  by  the  goodness  of  God  men  might  be 
raised  up  in  the  city  itself  pre-eminent  for  their  learn- 
ing, decreed  by  the  Apostolic  authority  that  a  university 
should  be  situated  in  the  city  and  that  it  should  flourish 
there  for  all  future  time  with  all  those  faculties  that  may 
be  found  more  fully  set  forth  in  the  letter  of  that  same 
predecessor  aforesaid.  And  whereas  we  subsequently, 
though  unworthy,  having  been  raised  to  the  dignity  of 
the  Apostolic  primacy,  are  desirous  to  reward  with  a 
still  richer  gift  the  same  city  of  Perugia  for  the  proofs 
of  its  devotion  by  which  it  has  proven  itself  worthy  of 
the  favor  of  the  Apostolic  See,  by  our  Apostolic  author- 
ity and  in  accordance  with  the  council  of  our  brother 
bishops,  we  grant  to  our  venerable  brother  the  Bishop 
of  Perugia  and  to  those  who  may  be  his  successors  in 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  151 

that  diocese  the  right  of  conferring  on  persons  who  are 
worthy  of  it  the  license  to  teach  (the  Doctorate)  in  canon 
and  civil  law,  according  to  that  fixed  method  which  is 
more  fully  described  and  regulated  more  at  length  in  this 
our  letter. 

"  Considering,  therefore,  that  this  same  city,  because 
of  its  conveniences  and  its  many  favoring  conditions,  is 
altogether  suitable  for  students  and  wishing  on  that 
account  to  amplify  the  educational  concessions  hitherto 
made  because  of  the  public  benefits  which  we  hope  will 
flow  from  them,  we  decree  by  Apostolic  authority  that 
if  there  are  any  who  in  the  course  of  time  shall  in  that 
same  university  attain  the  goal  of  knowledge  in  medical 
science  and  the  liberal  arts  and  should  ask  for  license  to 
teach  in  order  that  they  may  be  able  to  train  others  with 
more  freedom,  that  they  may  be  examined  in  that  uni- 
versity in  the  aforesaid  medical  sciences  and  in  the  arts 
and  be  decorated  with  the  title  of  Master  in  these  same 
faculties.  We  further  decree  that  as  often  as  any  are 
to  receive  the  degree  of  Doctor  in  medicine  and  arts  as 
aforesaid,  they  must  be  presented  to  the  Bishop  of  Pe- 
rugia, who  rules  the  diocese  at  the  time  or  to  him  whom 
the  bishop  shall  have  appointed  for  this  purpose,  who 
having  selected  teachers  of  the  same  faculty  in  which 
the  examinations  are  to  be  made,  who  are  at  that  time 
present  in  the  university  to  the  number  of  at  least  four, 
they  shall  come  together  without  any  charge  to  the  can- 
didate and,  every  difficulty  being  removed,  should  dili- 
gently endeavor  that  the  candidate  be  examined  in 
science,  in  eloquence,  in  his  mode  of  lecturing,  and  any- 
thing else  which  is  required  for  promotion  to  the  degree 
of  doctor  or  master.  With  regard  to  those  who  are 
found  worthy  their  teachers  should  be  further  consulted 
privately,  and  any  revelation  of  information  obtained 
at  such  consultations  as  might  redound  to  the  disadvan- 
tage or  injury  of  the  consultors  is  strictly  forbidden.  If 
all  is  satisfactory  the  candidate  should  be  approved  and 
admitted  and  the  license  to  teach  granted.  Those  who 
are  found  unfit  must  not  be  admitted  to  the  degree  of 
doctor,  all  leniency  or  prejudice  or  favor  being  set 
aside. 

' '  In  order  that  the  said  university  may  in  the  afore- 
said studies  of  medicine  and  the  arts  so  much  more  fully 


152  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

grow  in  strength,  according  as  the  professors  who  ac- 
tually begin  the  work  and  teaching  there  are  more  skill- 
ful, we  have  decided  that  until  four  or  five  years  have 
passed  some  professors,  two  at  least,  who  have  secured 
their  degree  in  the  medical  sciences  at  the  University  of 
Paris,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Cathedral  of  Paris,  and 
who  shall  have  taught  or  acted  as  masters  in  the  before- 
mentioned  University  of  Paris,  shall  be  selected  for  the 
duties  of  the  masterships  and  the  professional  chairs 
in  said  department  in  the  University  of  Perugia  and 
they  shall  continue  their  work  in  this  last-mentioned 
university  until  noteworthy  progress  in  the  formation  of 
good  students  shall  have  been  made. 

"  With  regard  to  those  who  are  to  receive  the  degree 
of  doctor  in  medical  science,  it  must  be  especially  ob- 
served that  all  those  seeking  the  degree  shall  have  heard 
lectures  in  all  the  books  of  this  same  science  which  are 
usually  required  to  be  heard  by  similar  students  at  the 
universities  of  Bologna  or  of  Paris  and  that  this  shall 
continue  for  seven  years.  Those,  however,  who  have 
elsewhere  received  sufficient  instruction  in  logic  or  phil- 
osophy having  applied  themselves  to  these  studies  for 
five  years  in  the  aforesaid  universities,  with  the  provi- 
sion, however,  that  at  least  three  years  of  the  aforesaid 
five  or  seven-year  term  shall  have  been  devoted  to  hear- 
ing lectures  in  medical  science  in  some  university,  and 
according  to  custom,  shall  have  been  examined  under 
duly  authorized  teachers  and  shall  have,  besides,  read 
such  books  outside  the  regular  course  as  may  be  re- 
quired may,  with  due  observation  of  all  the  regulations 
which  are  demanded  for  the  taking  of  degrees  in  Paris 
or  Bologna,  also  be  allowed  to  take  the  examination  at 
Perugia. " 

Here  is  a  bull  issued  within  five  years  after  the  bull 
which  President  White  so  falsely  impugns  and  which 
tells  a  very  different  story  with  regard  to  the  relation- 
ship of  the  Popes  to  education  in  general,  and  especially 
to  scientific  education,  from  that  which  unfortunate  mis- 
representations have  accorded  to  them.  Perugia  was  a 
city  of  the  Papal  States,  though  really  scarcely  more 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  153 

than  under  the  dominion  of  the  Popes  in  name.  The 
citizens  exercised  a  large  freedom  not  only  in  all  civic 
matters,  but  even  in  regard  to  their  relationships  with 
neighboring  cities  and  political  powers.  One  of  the 
things  which  Pope  John  seems  to  have  been  especially 
solicitous  about,  however,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  subse- 
quent bull,  was  that  the  educational  institutions  in  the 
Papal  States  should  be  maintained  at  a  high  standard. 
A  university  had  been  established  at  Perugia  by  his  pred- 
ecessor, and  Pope  John  not  only  confirmed  this  estab- 
lishment, but  gave  the  additional  privilege  of  conferring 
degrees  in  Canon  and  Civil  Law  as  well  as  in  Medicine 
and  the  Arts. 

Lest  there  should  be  any  thought  that  the  fact  that 
the  conferring  of  such  privileges  by  the  Pope  might 
seem  to  be  a  limitation  of  university  privilege,  it  may  be 
said  at  once  that  pra  tically  all  universities  have  at  all 
times  been  under  the  supervision  of  Government  and 
have  derived  their  privileges  from  the  political  author- 
ities. During  the  Middle  Ages  the  universities  were 
really  developments  of  Cathedral  schools,  and  as  such 
were  usually  under  the  authority  of  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Cathedral.  As  an  ecclesiastical  person  he  looked 
to  the  Pope  as  the  source  of  his  authority,  and  in 
order  that  uniformity  of  requirement  for  various  degrees . 
and  of  educational  methods  might  be  maintained,  there 
was  practically  universal  agreement  that  such  central- 
ization of  the  power  to  grant  privileges  for  the  erection 
of  universities  and  the  conferring  of  degrees  was  the 
most  practical  way.  With  regard  to  Perugia  besides 
there  was  the  additional  reason  that  the  Pope  repre- 
sented the  political  as  well  as  the  ecclesiastical  authority 
in  the  matter,  and  that  very  naturally  the  encourage- 


154  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

ment  for  the  good  educational  work  already  being  done 
in  the  Umbrian  City  should  come  from  him. 

This  premised,  certain  features  of  this  bull  are  espec- 
ially noteworthy  in  the  light  of  modern  educational  ex- 
periences. The  Pope  was  confirming  the  establishment 
of  a  new  university.  It  was  to  be  as  he  realized,  a 
smaller  university  in  size,  but  he  did  not  want  its  stand- 
ard of  education  to  be  lower  than  that  of  the  great  uni- 
versities. For  this  reason  he  insists  specifically  in  the 
bull  that  the  license  to  teach— the  equivalent  of  our 
modern  doctorate  in  law,  letters  and  science,  shall  not  be 
given  except  after  the  completion  of  a  course  equivalent 
to  those  given  in  these  subjects  in  Paris  or  Bologna,  the 
great  universities  of  the  time,  and  that  the  examination 
shall  be  quite  as  rigid  and  shall  be  conducted  under  con- 
ditions that,  as  far  as  human  foresight  can  arrange, 
shall  preclude  all  possibility  of  favoritism  of  any  kind 
entering  into  the  promotion  of  candidates  for  these  de- 
grees. The  fact  that  oaths  were  required  in  the  hope 
that  standards  would  be  thus  maintained  shows  how 
seriously  the  subject  of  education  was  taken  at  this 
time,  when,  if  we  would  believe  some  of  those  who  de- 
preciate the  Middle  Ages,  ecclesiastical  efforts  were 
mainly  occupied  with  the  attempt  to  keep  the  people  as 
ignorant  as  possible. 

This  phase  of  the  Papal  decree  is  all  the  more  inter- 
esting when  it  is  viewed  in  the  light  of  some  modern 
educational  developments.  A  few  years  ago  there  was 
a  very  general  complaint  that  the  doctorate  in  philosophy 
was  conferred  too  easily,  especially  by  the  minor  uni- 
versities, and  that  as  a  consequence  this  degree  had 
come  to  mean  very  little.  It  required  a  distinct  crusade 
of  effort  to  raise  standards  in  this  matter,  and  even  at 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  155 

the  present  time  the  situation  is  not  entirely  satisfac- 
tory. A  very  curious  element  in  the  situation  lies  in 
the  fact  that,  in  comparison  to  the  number  of  students, 
certain  of  the  smaller  universities  confer  this  distinction 
much  more  frequently  than  the  larger  universities.  This 
was  found  to  be  true  even  among  the  German  univer- 
sities, where  I  believe  that  according  to  statistics  the 
little  University  of  Rostock,  in  Mecklenberg,  confers  the 
degree  proportionately  of  tener  than  any  other  German 
university.  Pope  John  XXII.  was  evidently  endeavor- 
ing to  prevent  any  such  development  as  this,  or  perhaps 
he  was  trying  to  remedy  an  abuse  which  he  knew  had 
already  crept  in,  for  all  of  his  bulls  on  educational  mat- 
ters insist  with  no  little  emphasis  on  the  necessity  for 
the  maintenance  of  a  high  standard  of  educational  re- 
quirements as  regards  the  length  of  time  in  years  and 
the  books  to  be  read  and  lectures  attended,  as  well  as 
on  the  rigor,  yet  absolute  fairness  of  examinations. 

I  am  sure  that  the  bulls  of  John  XXII.  must  never 
have  come  under  President  White's  eyes,  or  he,  as  an  ex- 
perienced educator  who  has  had  to  meet  most  of  these 
problems  in  our  time,  would  have  been  more  sympathetic 
with  this  medieval  ecclesiastic,  who  did  all  in  his  power 
to  maintain  university  standards.  Pope  John's  career 
deserves  study  by  all  modern  educators  for  this  reason, 
and  the  surprise  of  it  will  be  that  in  education,  as  prac- 
tically in  everything  else,  in  spite  of  our  present-day 
self-complacency  in  the  matter  of  educational  progress, 
there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun,  certainly  nothing 
new  in  the  problems  university  authorities  have  to  meet 
in  order  to  maintain  their  standards. 

The  best  possible  proof  that  Pope  John  XXII.  was  not 
opposed  in  any  way  to  the  development  of  science  nor 


156  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

to  the  study  of  sciences  at  the  universities  is  to  be  found 
in  his  establishment  of  this  medical  school  at  Perugia, 
We  may  say  at  once  that  this  is  not  the  only  medical 
school  with  whose  encouragement  he  was  concerned  since 
the  erection  of  the  University  of  Cahors,  his  birthplace, 
and  the  establishment  of  a  medical  school  there,  as  well 
as  the  provision  of  funds  for  certain  medical  chairs  in 
the  University  at  Rome,  shows  the  reality  and  the 
breadth  of  his  interest  in  medicine.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  under  the  term  medicine  at  this  time  most  of 
the  physical  sciences  as  we  know  them  now  were  in- 
cluded. It  is  the  custom  sometimes  to  think  that  the 
students  of  medicine  in  the  Middle  Ages  knew  very  little 
about  medicine  itself  or  the  sciences  related  to  medi- 
cine. This  thought  was  excusable  some  years  ago  when 
the  old  medical  text-books  of  the  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries  had  not  as  yet  been  printed. 

At  the  present  time,  such  a  mistake  would  be  un- 
pardonable for  any  scholar  who  pretends  to  first-hand 
knowledge  of  this  period.  In  the  chapter  on  Science  at 
the  Medieval  Universities  I  call  special  attention  to  the 
fact  that  medicine  and  surgery  developed  in  such  a 
wonderful  way  at  the  medical  schools  of  the  universities 
of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  that  many 
presumed  discoveries  of  much  later  times  were  marvel- 
ously  anticipated.  A  short  catalogue  of  them  here  may 
not  be  out  of  place,  though  the  reader  is  referred  to 
other  chapters  for  further  details.  v  In  the  medical 
schools  which  Pope  John  XXII.  was  then  fostering,  they 
taught  the  ligature  of  arteries,  the  prevention  of  bleed- 
ing by  pressure,  the  danger  of  wounds  of  the  neck,  the 
relation  of  dropsy  to  hardening  of  the  kidneys,  the  true 
origins  of  the  venereal  diseases,  the  methods  of  treating 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  157 

joint  diseases,  the  suture  of  divided  nerves,  the  use  of 
the  knife  rather  than  the  cautery  because  it  made  a 
cleaner  wound  which  healed  more  readily,  and  even, 
wonder  of  wonders,  healing  by  first  intention.  Anyone 
who  was  fostering  this  kind  of  education  in  medicine 
was  advancing  the  cause  of  one  of  the  applied  sciences 
in  a  very  wonderful  way. 

If  we  add  that,  at  this  same  time  the  proper  use  of 
opium  in  medicine  was  a  feature  of  medical  teaching 
which  had  just  been  introduced  by  a  Papal  physician, 
while  a  form  of  anaesthesia  was  being  practically  devel- 
oped and  very  generally  employed,  the  question  will 
be  why  we,  in  the  twentieth  century,  do  not  know 
ever  so  much  more  than  we  actually  do,  rather  than 
why  these  earnest  students  of  the  thirteenth  century 
knew  so  little,  which  is  the  absurd  thought  that  most 
authorities  in  education  seem  to  entertain  at  the  present 
time  with  regard  to  our  forbears  of  early  university 
history.  The  student  of  medicine  during  the  thirteenth 
century  had  to  devote  himself  very  nearly  to  the  same 
department  of  science  as  those  which  occupy  his  col- 
leagues of  the  present  century. 

The  prospectus  of  a  medical  school  of  the  time  would 
announce  very  probably  some  such  program  of  studies 
as  this.  Besides  learning  something  of  astrology  (the 
astronomy  of  the  day)  the  student  would  be  expected  to 
know  much  about  climate  and  its  influence  on  disease, 
and  about  soil  in  its  relation  to  pathology  (these  were 
supposed  to  be  fruitful  causes  of  disease) .  Certain  min- 
erals, among  them  very  probably  antimony,  were  begin- 
ning to  be  used  in  medical  practice,  and  so  mineralogy  was 
a  special  subject  of  study.  Of  plants  they  were  expected 
to  know  in  a  general  way  much  more  than  the  modern 


158  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

medical  student,  to  whom  botany  is  not  considered  of 
much  importance,  and  of  zoology  they  probably  had  at 
least  as  great  practical  knowledge,  since  many  of  their 
dissections  were  made  on  animals,  and  the  differences  in 
structure  between  them  and  man  were  pointed  out  when 
the  annual  anatomies  or  human  dissections  at  the  uni- 
versities were  made.  Of  pharmacology  and  the-  allied 
subject,  chemistry,  they  had  to  know  all  that  would 
enable  them  to  use  properly  the  several  hundred  vege- 
table remedies  then  used  in  medicine.  This  will  give 
an  idea,  then,  what  were  in  general  the  studies  which 
Pope  John  was  trying  to  foster  with  so  much  care  in  the 
University  of  Perugia. 

There  is  another  phase  of  his  regulations  with  regard 
to  medical  schools  which  cannot  but  prove  of  the  greatest 
interest  to  members  of  our  present-day  medical  faculties. 
It  has  been  realized  for  some  time,  that  what  is  needed 
more  than  anything  else  to  make  good  physicians  for  the 
present  generation  is  that  medical  students  should  have 
a  better  preliminary  education  than  has  been  the  case  in 
the  past.  In  order  to  secure  this,  various  states  have 
required  evidence  of  a  certain  number  of  years  spent  at 
high  school  or  college  before  a  medical  student's  certifi- 
cate allowing  entrance  into  a  medical  school  will  be 
granted.  Some  of  the  most  prominent  medical  schools 
have  gone  even  farther  than  this,  and  have  required 
that  a  degree  in  arts  should  be  obtained  in  the  under- 
graduate department  before  medical  studies  may  be 
taken  up.  Something  of  this  same  kind  was  manifestly 
in  Pope  John's  mind  when  he  required  that  seven 
years  should  have  been  spent  at  a  university,  at  least 
three  years  of  which  should  have  been  entirely  de- 
voted to  medical  studies,  before  the  candidate  might 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  159 

be  allowed  to  go  up  for  his  examination  for  the  doctor's 
degree. 

As  we  begin  the  twentieth  century,  we  note  that  the 
presidents  of  our  American  universities  are  trying  to  se- 
cure just  exactly  the  same  number  of  years  of  study  for 
candidates  for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine,  as  this 
medieval  Pope  insisted  on  as  a  prerequisite  for  the  same 
degree  in  a  university  founded  in  the  Papal  States  at  the 
beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century.  After  the  year 
1910  most  of  the  large  universities  in  this  country  will 
not  admit  further  students  to  their  medical  departments 
unless  they  have  a  college  degree  or  its  equivalent,  that 
is,  unless  they  have  devoted  four  years  to  college  under- 
graduate work.  It  is  generally  understood,  that  in  the 
last  year  of  his  undergraduate  course  the  student  who 
intends  to  take  up  medicine  may  elect  such  scientific 
studies  in  the  college  department  as  will  obtain  for  him 
an  allowance  of  a  year's  work  in  the  medical  school.  He 
will  then  be  able  to  complete  his  medical  course  in  three 
years,  so  that  our  modern  institutions  will,  if  our  plans 
succeed,  require  just  exactly  the  same  amount  of  time  for 
the  doctorate  in  Medicine  as  Pope  John  demanded,  and 
not  only  demanded,  but  required  by  legal  regulation,  for 
this  bull  was  a  law  in  the  Papal  States,  just  six  centuries 
ago.  The  coincidence  is  so  striking  that,  only  that  it  is 
supported  by  documentary  evidence  of  the  best  kind,  we 
could  scarcely  believe  it. 

Yet  it  is  the  Pope  who  encouraged  devotion  to  science 
in  all  forms  as  it  was  studied  in  his  day,  who  insisted 
that  the  standards  of  education  in  the  universities  of  the 
Papal  States,  over  which  he  had  direct  control,  should 
be  equal  to  those  of  Paris  and  Bologna,  who  suggested 
that  teachers  should  be  brought  from  the  famous  uni- 


160  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

versities  for  the  purpose  of  introducing  the  best  educa- 
tional methods,  who  is  now  declared  by  President  White 
to  have  "  stimulated  the  childish  fear  and  hatred  against 
the  investigation  of  nature  which  was  felt  for  centuries, 
and  whose  decrees  and  briefs  are  said  to  have  caused 
chemistry  to  be  known  more  and  more  as  one  of  the 
'seven  devilish  arts/  "  Here  is  the  striking  difference 
between  traditional  and  documentary  history. 

There  are  other  bulls  of  Pope  John  which  serve  to 
bring  out  his  interest  in  education  quite  as  clearly  as  this, 
one,  and  show  that  the  ecclesiastics  of  the  time  were 
encouraged  to  think  and  act  up  to  the  thought,  that  edu- 
cation of  all  kinds  was  sure  to  be  of  benefit  to  the  Church 
and  her  members.  In  extending  the  privileges  of  the 
University  of  Perugia  on  another  occasion  by  the  bull 
Inter  ceteras  euros,  John  declared  that  among  the  other 
cares  which  were  enjoined  on  him  from  on  high  by  his 
Apostolic  office  and  amongst  the  many  projects  which 
were  constantly  in  his  mind  for  the  betterment  of  re- 
ligion, his  thoughts  were  directed  more  frequently  and 
more  ardently  to  this  conclusion  than  to  any  other,  that 
the  professors  of  the  Catholic  faith  whom  the  true  light 
of  the  true  faith  illuminates  should  be  imbued  with  the 
deepest  wisdom  and  should  become  erudite  in  all  the 
studies  that  bring  profitable  knowledge.  For,  he  adds, 
this  gift  cannot  be  bought  by  any  price,  but  is  divinely 
granted  to  minds  that  are  of  good  will.  For  the  posses- 
sion of  knowledge  is  evidently  desirable,  since  by  it  the 
darkness  of  ignorance  and  the  gloom  of  error  are  entirely 
done  away  with  and  the  intelligence  of  students  is  in- 
creased so  as  to  direct  all  their  acts  and  deeds  in  the 
light  of  truth.  "  It  is  for  this  reason  (and  no  wonder) , " 
he  adds,  "that  I  am  led  to  encourage  the  study  of 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE 


letters  in  which  the  priceless  pearl  of  knowledge  is  to  be 
found,  and  especially  in  such  places  as  may  bear  worthy 
fruit  for  the  Church  itself  and  for  its  members." 

The  expressions  that  he  here  uses  are  almost  word  for 
word,  though  not  quite  the  same  as  occur  in  other  bulls, 
showing  that  a  sort  of  formula  was  constantly  used  to 
express  the  opinion  of  the  Holy  See  with  regard  to  the 
desirableness  of  knowledge  and  the  benefit  that  might 
be  expected  to  flow  from  education.  Not  all  of  the  bull, 
however,  is  a  formula,  since  in  the  rest  of  it  Pope  John 
insists  that  at  least  five  years  must  be  required  at  the 
university  for  the  study  of  Canon  and  Civil  Law,  and  de- 
tailed injunctions  are  set  forth  as  to  the  method  of  ex- 
amination so  as  to  secure  two  things,  first  that  a  proper 
standard  shall  be  maintained  and  that  those  who  have 
completed  the  course  shall  have  the  right  to  examina- 
tions without  further  payment  of  fees,  and  secondly, 
that  such  examinations  shall  be  absolutely  fair,  without 
any  favor  being  shown  to  the  applicant  in  any  way,  and 
at  the  same  time  without  any  prejudice  being  allowed  to 
influence  his  examiners  against  him. 

Lest  readers  should  be  tempted  to  think  of  Perugia  as 
a  town  of  very  slight  importance  from  a  political  and 
civil  standpoint,  and  therefore  consider  anything  done 
for  it  as  amounting  to  very  little  in  the  culture  or  in- 
fluence of  the  period,  a  short  sketch  of  it  will  not  be 
out  of  place.  This  little  town  has  had  the  distinction  of 
being  the  center  of  interest  in  at  least  four  marvelous 
epochs  of  human  development.  Long  before  Roman 
civilization  in  Italy  arose,  the  Etruscans  did  some  of  their 
greatest  art-work  in  the  country  around  Perugia,  the 
remains  of  which  have  been  unearthed  in  recent  years. 
Seven  centuries  later,  the  Romans  left  some  magnificent 


162  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Architectural  monuments  of  their  occupation  of  this 
neighborhood.  Somewhat  more  than  a  thousand  years 
passed,  and  St.  Francis  breathed  his  profound  spirit  of 
love  for  nature  in  all  its  forms  into  the  world  almost 
within  sight  of  its  walls,  and  with  him  the  Renaissance 
began.  The  great  Umbrian  school  of  painters  in  the 
Renaissance  period  came  from  this  district,  and  they  in- 
clude such  names  as  Raphael  and  his  great  master  Peru- 
gino,  who  received  his  name  from  his  birthplace.  Before 
John  XXII.  did  so  much  to  make  it  a  center  of  culture 
and  education  for  this  portion  of  Italy,  it  had  been  noted 
in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century  for  possessing 
a  library  of  Canon  and  Civil  Law  to  which  scholars  often 
traveled  from  great  distances  for  consultation  purposes. 
The  Pope,  then,  though  in  distant  Avignon,  was  greatly 
helping  on  that  movement  which  was  to  culminate  and 
mean  so  much  for  Umbria,  that  great  center  of  culture 
and  influence  in  the  Renaissance  time. 

In  erecting  the  University  of  Cahors,  Pope  John  took 
occasion  to  say  that  he  did  so  because  the  city  promised 
to  provide  facilities  and  proper  conditions  for  the  uni- 
versity and  he  believed  that  the  existence  of  such  an  in- 
stitution would  in  very  many  ways  be  of  benefit  to  the 
commonwealth.  He  wished,  therefore,  that  in  Cahors, 
"a  copious,  refreshing  fountain  of  science  should  spring 
up  and  continue  to  flow,  from  whose  abundance  all  the 
citizens  might  drink,  and  where  those  desirous  of  educa- 
tion might  become  imbued  with  knowledge  so  that  the 
cultivators  of  wisdom  might  sow  seed  with  success  and 
all  the  student  body  become  learned  and  eloquent  and  in 
every  way  distinguished,  bearing  abundant  fruit  which 
the  Lord  in  His  own  good  time  would  give  them  if  they 
applied  themselves  with  good  will."  He  wished  that 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  153 

f~- 

the  erection  of  the  university  should  be  considered  as  a 
special  reward  for  their  devotion  to  the  Holy  See  and 
should  always  stand  as  a  memorial  of  that. 

The  thought  may  possibly  occur  to  some  that  Pope 
John,  after  having  issued  these  noteworthy  documents 
in  the  cause  of  education  in  the  early  years  of  his  pon- 
tificate, might  subsequently  have  changed  his  mind  and 
considered  with  advancing  years  that  the  repression  of 
the  enthusiasm  for  learning  would  be  better  for  his 
people  from  a  spiritual  standpoint.  There  is,  however, 
no  sign  of  this  to  be  found  in  the  important  documents 
of  his  pontificate,  nor  would  anyone  think  of  it  who  real- 
ized that  John  became  Pope  at  the  age  of  72,  after  hav- 
ing a  very  wide  personal  experience  in  political  affairs  as 
well  as  ecclesiastical  matters,  an  experience  which  took 
him  over  many  parts  of  Europe  and  must  have  greatly 
broadened  his  intellectual  horizon,  and  that  he  remained 
in  full  possession  of  his  wonderful  intellectual  powers 
until  he  was  well  past  90.  Within  two  years  before  his 
death  he  issued  the  bull  which  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
University  of  Cahors,  his  native  place.  This  he  did  at 
the  request  of  the  citizens  of  the  town,  who  pleaded  that 
no  better  memorial  of  their  great  fellow  citizen  who  had 
become  Pope  could  be  raised  among  them  than  a  uni- 
versity. 

In  the  light  of  these  other  bulls  it  is  not  surprising 
to  find  that  John  should  also  have  endeavored  to  main- 
tain the  standard  of  the  University  of  the  City  of  Rome. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  at  this  time  the  Popes  were 
at  Avignon,  and  that  as  a  consequence  the  population  of 
the  city  of  Rome  had  greatly  decreased  and  there  were 
so  many  civic  dissensions  that  very  little  attention  could 
be  given  to  educational  matters.  Pope  John  issued  a 


164  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

bull,  however,  from  Avignon,  confirming  the  erection  of 
the  University  of  the  City  of  Rome  by  his  predecessor 
of  happy  memory,  Boniface  VIII.  (the  same  who  is 
said,  though  falsely,  to  have  hampered  the  development 
of  anatomy) ,  and  further  laying  down  regulations  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  standard  of  education  in  the 
Roman  University.  In  this  bull  John  says  that  he  con- 
siders that  a  Pope  could  confer  no  greater  favor  on  the 
City  of  Cities  so  closely  attached  to  the  Roman  Church, 
than  to  bring  about  the  re-establishment  of  the  univer- 
sity there,  so  that  the  inhabitants  and  the  visitors  to 
Rome  might  all  have  the  opportunity  and  also  the  in- 
citement to  seek  after  wisdom,  for  this  is  a  gift  which 
comes  from  on  high,  which  cannot  be  bought  for  a  price, 
but  which  is  only  granted  to  those  who  seek  it  with  good 
will. 

John  proceeds  to  say  that  he  hopes  that  the  city  of 
Rome  shall,  under  the  favor  of  Providence,  produce  men  of 
pre-eminent  worth  in  science,  and  that  in  order  that  the 
wishes  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  in  this  matter  may  be  ful- 
filled he  confirms  and  extends  all  the  privileges  which 
had  been  originally  granted.  In  the  University  at  Rome 
there  were  also  professors  of  medicine,  and  there  is  good 
historical  authority  for  the  assertion  that  John  himself 
offered  to  pay  out  of  the  Papal  revenues  the  salary  of  the 
professor  of  physic,  in  order  that  this  department  of  the 
university  might  become  established  as  firmly  as  were 
the  other  departments.  In  a  word,  in  the  documentary 
evidence  so  readily  available  to  any  one  who  wishes  to 
consult  it,  we  find  John  manifesting  that  he  was  "a 
kindly  and  rational  scholar/'  to  use  President  White's 
expression,  "  seeking,"  surely  if  education  shall  have 
any  such  effect,  and  in  modern  times  we  have  been  led 


PAPAL    PATRON    OF    SCIENCE  165 

to  believe  that  it  can,  "to  save  the  people  from  the 
clutch  of  superstition."  President  White  has  employed 
the  expression  satirically.  I  think  that  any  one  who 
reads  the  contemporary  documents  in  the  case  must 
acknowledge  that  it  is  literally  true. 

The  life  of  Pope  John  XXII.  is  a  striking  example  of  the 
difference  between  traditional  and  documentary  history. 
According  to  the  traditions  that  have  gathered  around 
his  name,  John  has  been  declared  by  many  to  be  one  of 
the  banes  of  civilization  and  education  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  A  little  study  of  the  documents  issued  by  him 
shows  him  in  quite  a  different  light.  He  was  not  only 
interested  in  educational  matters  of  every  kind,  but  he 
was  deeply  intent,  and  as  far  as  the  Papal  power  en- 
abled him  he  succeeded  in  carrying  out  his  intention, 
of  making  education  thoroughly  effective  in  every  de- 
partment. It  is  by  a  man's  intentions  that  he  must  be 
judged.  John  meant  to  do  everything  for  the  best. 
Unfortunately,  some  of  his  actions  in  the  matter  of  the 
provision  of  revenues  T3ecame  subject  later  to  abuse. 
For  this  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  he  should  be  held 
responsible.  In  the  meantime,  for  educators,  the  study 
of  the  actual  documents  issued  by  him  and  their  utterly 
different  significance  from  what  might  be  expected  ac- 
cording to  the  usually  accepted  notion  of  his  character, 
cannot  but  prove  a  lesson  in  historical  values.  It  illus- 
trates very  well  a  phase  of  history  that  has  recently  been 
called  to  attention. 

As  we  have  said,  one  hundred  years  ago  De  Maistre 
declared  that  history  had  been  a  conspiracy  against  the 
truth.     At  last  a  universal  recognition  is  coming  of  the 
fact  that  history  has  been  written  entirely  too  much 
from  the  personal  standpoint  of  the  historian  without 


166  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

due  reference  to  contemporary  documents  and  authori- 
ties, or  with  the  citation  of  only  such  references  from 
these  as  would  support  the  special  contention  of  the 
writer.  Even  the  writers  of  history  whose  reputation 
has  been  highest  have  suffered  from  this  fault,  and  the 
consequence  is  that  on  disputed  points  it  is  more  impor- 
tant to  know  what  party  a  historian  belongs  to  than 
what  he  writes. 

Is  it  not  time  that  at  least  our  educators  should  cease 
accepting  this  old  traditional  opinion  with  regard  to  the 
times  before  the  reformation  so-called,  and  get  at  the 
truth  in  the  matter,  or  as  near  it  as  possible.  These 
educators  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries 
were  zealous  and  earnest  beyond  cavil.  That  everyone 
admits.  It  is  supposed,  however,  that  they  were  ridic- 
ulously ignorant  and  superstitious.  Only  those  who  are 
themselves  ridiculously  ignorant  and  superstitious,  for 
the  real  meaning  of  superstition  is  persistence  in  accept- 
ing a  supposed  truth  that  is  a  survival  (superstes)  from 
a  previous  state  of  knowledge,  after  the  reasons  for  its 
acceptance  have  been  shown  to  be  groundless,  will  con- 
tinue to  believe  this  absurd  proposition.  If  the  educator 
of  the  modern  day  will  only  study  with  the  sympathy  they 
deserve,  the  lives  of  the  earliest  educators  of  modern 
times,  the  professors,  the  officials,  and  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities  as  well  as  the  Papal  patrons  of  the  universi- 
ties of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  we  shall 
hear  no  more  of  the  Church  during  the  Middle  Ages 
having  been  opposed  to  education,  nor  to  science,  nor  to 
any  other  department  of  human  knowledge. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  SURGERY  DURING  THE 
MIDDLE   AGES. 

It  is  with  regard  to  surgery  that  the  opposition  of  the 
Church  is  sometimes  supposed  to  have  been  most  serious 
in  its  effects  upon  the  progress  of  medical  science  and 
its  applications  for  the  relief  of  human  suffering.  Pres- 
ident White  has  stated  this,  as  usual,  very  emphatically 
in  certain  paragraphs  of  his  chapter  on  From  Miracles 
to  Medicine,  especially  under  the  caption  of  Theological 
Discouragement  of  Medicine.  He  says,  for  instance  :— 

"  As  to  surgery,  this  same  amalgamation  of  theology 
with  survivals  of  pagan  beliefs  continued  to  check 
the  evolution  of  medical  science  down  to  the  modern 
epoch.  The  nominal  hostility  of  the  Church  to  the 
shedding  of  blood  withdrew,  as  we  have  seen,  from 
surgical  practice  the  great  body  of  her  educated  men  ; 
hence  surgery  remained  down  to  the  fifteenth  century 
a  despised  profession,  its  practice  continued  largely  in 
the  hands  of  charlatans,  and  down  to  a  very  recent 
period  the  name  '  barber-surgeon '  was  a  survival  of  this. 
In  such  surgery,  the  application  of  various  ordures  re- 
lieved fractures ;  the  touch  of  the  hangman  cured 
sprains  ;  the  breath  of  a  donkey  expelled  poison  ;  friction 
with  a  dead  man's  tooth  cured  toothache." 

In  another  and  earlier  portion  of  the  same  chapter, 
under  the  heading  "  Theological  Opposition  to  Anatomi- 
cal Studies,"  he  states  the  reason's  why  this  low  state  of 
surgical  practice  existed.  Once  more  it  is  declared  to  be 

(167) 


168  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

because  of  a  prohibitory  decree,  or  several  of  them,  di- 
rected against  the  practice  of  surgery  by  ecclesiastical 
authorities,,  These  decrees,  we  shall  find,  as  was  true  of 
previous  supposed  prohibitions,  are  entirely  perverted 
from  their  real  meaning  by  President  White,  who  has  the 
happy  faculty  of  lighting  upon  mares'  nests  of  Papal 
decrees  and  decrees  of  councils  and  neglecting  to  pay 
any  attention  to  the  real  history  of  the  science  of  which 
he  writes.  President  White  says  : 

1 '  To  those  arguments  against  dissection  was  now  added 
another  one  which  may  well  fill  us  with  amazement.  It 
is  the  remark  of  the  foremost  of  recent  English  philoso- 
phical historians,  that  of  all  organizations  in  human  his- 
tory, the  Church  of  Rome  has  caused  the  greatest  spilling 
of  innocent  blood.  No  one  conversant  with  history,  even 
though  he  admit  all  possible  extenuating  circumstances 
and  honor  the  older  Church  for  the  great  circumstances 
which  can  undoubtedly  be  claimed  for  her,  can  deny  this 
statement.  Strange  is  it,  then,  to  note  that  one  of  the 
main  objections  developed  in  the  Middle  Ages  against 
anatomical  studies  was  the  maxim  that  '  The  Church  ab- 
hors the  shedding  of  blood. ' ' 

"On  this  ground,  in  1248,  the  Council  of  Le  Mans  for- 
bade surgery  to  monks.  Many  other  councils  did  the 
same,  and  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  came  the 
most  serious  blow  of  all :  for  it  was  then  that  Pope  Boni- 
face VIII. ,  without  any  of  that  foresight  of  consequences 
which  might  well  have  been  expected  in  an  infallible 
teacher,  issued  a  decretal  forbidding  a  practice  which 
had  come  into  use  during  the  Crusades,  namely,  the 
separation  of  the  flesh  from  the  bones  of  the  dead  whose 
remains  it  was  desired  to  carry  back  to  their  own 
country."  Note  always  the  return  to  Pope  Boniface's 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  169 

bull  and  always  the  perversion  of  the  meaning  of  the 
word  infallibility. 

I  have  already  stated  the  real  significance  of  Boniface's 
bull.  It  neither  forbade,  nor  did  its  interpretation  in 
any  way  hamper,  the  development  of  anatomy.  Just 
exactly  the  same  thing  is  true  with  regard  to  the  Papal 
regulations  or  decrees  of  councils  that  are  claimed  to  have 
hampered  surgery.  President  White  and  others  have  in- 
sisted that  the  prohibition  of  surgery  to  monks  and 
priests  prevented  the  development  of  surgery  or  was 
responsible  for  the  low  state  of  surgical  practice.  Here 
once  more  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  deduction,  and  not 
of  an  induction  that  represents  the  actual  facts  in  the 
case.  Most  students  at  the  universities  were  clerks,  that 
is,  had  the  privileges  of  clergymen,  and  were,  as  a  rule, 
in  minor  orders.  All  the  great  surgeons  of  this  time, 
and  they  were  many,  were  ecclesiastics. 

The  climax  of  President  White's  treatment  of  the  re- 
lationship of  the  Church  to  surgery  and  of  the  intense 
opposition  manifested  by  ecclesiastics  to  surgical  progress, 
and,  I  may  add,  the  climax  of  absurdity  as  far  as  the  real 
history  of  surgery  is  concerned,  comes  in  the  last  para- 
graph of  this  portion  of  his  chapter  on  From  Miracles  to 
Medicine,  which  President  White  has  placed  under  the  title 
Theological  Opposition  to  Anatomical  Studies.  He  says : 

''So  deeply  was  the  idea  rooted  in  the  mind  of  the 
Universal  Church  that  for  over  a  thousand  years  surgery 
was  considered  dishonorable ;  the  greatest  monarchs 
were  often  unable  to  secure  an  ordinary  surgical  opera- 
tion ;  and  it  was  only  in  1406  that  a  better  beginning 
was  made,  when  the  Emperor  Wenzel  of  Germany  or- 
dered that  dishonor  should  no  longer  attach  to  the  surgi- 
cal profession." 


170  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

President  White  insists  over  and  over  again  that  what- 
ever surgery  there  was,  and  especially  whatever  progress 
was  made  in  surgery,  was  due  to  the  Arabs,  or  at  least 
to  Arabian  initiative.  Gurlt,  in  his  History  of  Surgery,1 
which  we  have  referred  to  elsewhere,  is  very  far  from 
sharing  this  view.  I  need  scarcely  say  that  Gurlt  is  one 
of  our  best  authorities  in  the  history  of  surgery.  In  his 
sketch  of  Roger,  the  first  of  the  great  Italian  surgeons 
of  the  thirteenth  century  who  came  after  the  foundation 
of  the  universities,  Gurlt  says  that,  "  though  Arabian 
writings  on  surgery  had  been  brought  over  to  Italy  by 
Constantine  Africanus  a  hundred  years  before  Roger's 
time,  those  exercised  no  influence  over  Italian  surgery  in 
the  next  century,  and  there  is  not  a  trace  of  the  surgical 
knowledge  of  the  Arabs  to  be  found  in  Roger's  work." 
His  writing  depends  almost  entirely  upon  the  surgical 
traditions  of  his  time,  the  experience  of  his  teachers  and 
colleagues,  to  whom  in  two  places  he  has  given  due 
credit,  and  on  the  Greek  writers.  There  are  no  traces  of 
Arabisms  to  be  found  in  Roger's  writing,  while  they  are 
full  of  Grecisms.  Roger  represents  the  first  important 
writer  on  surgery  in  modern  times,  and  his  works  have 
been  printed  several  times  because  of  their  value  as 
original  documents. 

It  is  wonderfully  amusing  to  anyone  who  knows  Gurlt 's 
History  of  Surgery,2  that  the  distinguished  old  professor 
of  the  University  of  Berlin,  looked  up  to  as  so  well  in- 
formed as  to  the  history  of  the  branch  of  medical  science 
to  which  he  had  devoted  a  long  life,  should  have  wasted 
some  three  hundred  pages  of  his  first  volume  on  the  His- 

1  Geschichte  der  Chirurgie  und  ihrer  Ausiibung.    Von  Dr.  E.  Gurlt,  Vol.  I.,  p.  701. 

2  Geschichte  der  Chirurgie  und  ihrer  Ausiibung.  Von  Dr.  E.  Gurlt,  Geh.  Med.  Rath, 
Prof,  der  Chirurgie  an  der  Koniglichen  Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat  zu  Berlin. 
Berlin,  1898. 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  171 

tory  of  Surgery  in  Middle  and  West  Europe  during  the 
Middle  Ages,  for  they  are  mainly  taken  up  with  the  con- 
sideration of  the  period  when  President  White  asserts 
that  there  was  no  surgery  in  Europe.  Gurlt  even  pro- 
tests that  he  has  not  as  much  space  as  he  would  like  to 
devote  to  these  old-time  masters  of  surgery,  who  did  so 
much  to  lay  the  foundation  of  modern  surgical  practices. 
Those  who  have  paid  any  attention  to  President  White's 
assertion  with  regard  to  surgery  at  this  time,  should 
at  least  look  over  Gurlt.  They  will  thus  realize  what 
a  dangerous  thing  it  is  to  attempt  large  conclusions 
in  the  history  of  a  department  of  knowledge  of  which 
one  knows  nothing.  They  will  also  realize  how  easy 
it  is  for  a  writer  with  some  prestige,  to  lead  others 
astray  in  a  matter  of  history,  by  simply  making  asser- 
tions without  taking  the  trouble  to  see  whether  they  are 
supported  by  the  facts  in  the  case  or  not. 

The  modern  American  historian  of  Theology  and 
Science  says,  ' '  for  over  a  thousand  years  surgery  was 
considered  dishonorable. ' '  For  the  sake  of  contrast  with 
this  opinion  of  President  White's,  read  for  a  moment  the 
following  remarks  which  constitute  the  opening  sentences 
of  Pagel 's  paragraphs  on  Surgery  from  1200  to  1500,  in 
Puschmann's  Handbuch  of  the  History  of  Medicine,  al- 
ready referred  to.  Before  making  the  quotation,  let  me 
recall  attention  to  the  fact  that  Professor  Pagel  is  the 
best  informed  living  writer  on  the  history  of  medicine. 
This  book  was  issued  in  1902.  It  is  universally  conceded 
to  contain  the  last  words  on  the  history  of  medical 
development.  There  is  no  doubt  at  all  about  its  absolute 
authoritativeness.  President  White  has  been  calling  on 
his  imagination  ;  Professor  Pagel  has  consulted  original 
documents  in  the  history  of  surgery.  He  says  : 


172  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

"A  more  favorable  star  shone  during  the  whole  Middle 
Ages  over  surgery  than  over  practical  medicine.  The 
representatives  of  this  specialty  succeeded  earlier  than 
did  the  practical  physicians  in  freeing  themselves  from 
the  ban  of  scholasticism.  In  its  development  a  more 
constant  and  more  even  progress  cannot  fail  to  be  seen. 
The  stream  of  literary  works  on  surgery  flows  richer 
during  this  period.  While  the  surgeons  are  far  from 
being  able  to  emancipate  themselves  from  the  ruling 
pathological  theories,  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  one  de- 
partment, that  of  manual  technics,  free  observation  came 
to  occupy  the  first  place  in  the  effort  for  scientific  pro- 
gress. Investigation  is  less  hampered  and  concerns  it- 
self with  practical  things  and  not  with  artificial  theories. 
Experimental  observation  was  in  this  not  repressed  by 
an  unfortunate  and  iron-bound  appeal  to  reasoning."  I 
am  tempted  to  add  as  a  reflection,  deduction  was  not 
allowed  to  replace  attention  to  facts,  though  it  has  in 
some  supposed  surgical  history  of  this  period. 

Pagel  continues :  ' '  Indeed,  the  lack  of  so-called  scholar- 
ship, the  freshness  of  view  free  from  all  prejudice  with 
which  surgery,  uninfluenced  by  scholastic  presumption, 
was  forced  to  enter  upon  the  objective  consideration  of 
things,  while  most  of  the  surgeons  brought  with  them 
to  their  calling  an  earnest  vocation  in  union  with  great 
technical  facility,  caused  surgery  to  enter  upon  ways  in 
which  it  secured,  as  I  have  said,  greater  relative  success 
than  did  practical  medicine." 

President  White  has  evidently  never  bothered  to  look 
into  a  history  of  surgery  at  all,  or  he  would  not  have 
fallen  into  the  egregious  error  of  saying  that  the  period 
from  1200  to  1400  was  barren  of  surgery,  for  it  is  really 
one  of  the  most  important  periods  in  the  development  of 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  173 

modern  surgery.  Further  evidence  as  to  this  is  rather 
easy  to  obtain. 

I  have  cited  two  German  authorities  in  the  history  of 
medicine  and  surgery.  Here  is  an  English  writer  who 
is  quite  as  authoritative.  In  the  address  on  The  Histori- 
cal Relations  of  Medicine  and  Surgery  to  the  end  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century,  which  Professor  Clifford  Allbutt,  the 
Regius  Professor  of  Physic  at  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, delivered  by  special  invitation  at  the  Congress  of 
Arts  and  Sciences  of  St.  Louis  in  1904,  this  distinguished 
authority  in  the  history  of  medicine  had  much  to  say 
with  regard  to  the  wonderful  development  of  surgery  in 
the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  that  is,  during 
the  period  when,  if  we  were  to  accept  President  White's 
declarations,  surgery  either  did  not  exist,  or  else  had 
been  relegated  to  such  mere  handicraftsmen  that  no  real 
scientific  progress  in  it  could  possibly  be  expected.  As 
Professor  Allbutt  was  trying  only  to  give  a  twentieth 
century  audience  some  idea  of  the  magnificent  work  that 
had  been  accomplished  by  fellow  members  of  his  profes- 
sion of  medicine  seven  centuries  before,  and  had  no  idea 
of  discussing  the  influence,  favorable  or  otherwise,  of 
the  Church  upon  the  progress  of  medical  science,  I  have 
preferred  to  quote  directly  from  this  address  for  evi- 
dence of  the  surgery  of  these  centuries,  than  to  gather 
the  details  from  many  sources,  when  it  might  perhaps 
be  thought  that  I  was  making  out  a  more  favorable  case 
than  actually  existed,  for  the  sake  of  the  Church  and 
the  Popes. 

"Both  for  his  own  great  merits  as  an  original  and  in- 
dependent observer  and  as  the  master  of  Lanf ranc,  Wil- 
liam Salicet  (Gugliemo  Salicetti  of  Piacenza,  in  Latin  G. 
Placentinus  or  de  Saliceto— now  Cadeo)  was  eminent 


174  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

among  the  great  Italian  physicians  of  the  latter  half  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  Now,  these  great  Italians  were 
as  distinguished  in  surgery  as  in  medicine,  and  William 
was  one  of  the  protestants  of  the  period  against  the  di- 
vision of  surgery  from  inner  medicine— a  division  which 
he  regarded  as  a  separation  of  medicine  from  intimate 
touch  with  nature.  Like  Lanfranc  and  the  other  great 
surgeons  of  the  Italian  tradition,  and  unlike  Franco  and 
Pare,  he  had  the  advantage  of  the  liberal  university  edu- 
cation of  Italy ;  but,  like  Pare  and  Wtirtz,  he  had  large 
practical  experience  in  hospital  and  in  the  battlefield. 
He  practiced  first  at  Bologna,  afterwards  in  Verona. 
William  fully  recognized  that  surgery  cannot  be  learned 
from  books  only.  His  surgery  contains  many  case  his- 
tories, for  he  rightly  opined  that  good  notes  of  cases  are 
the  soundest  foundation  of  good  practice ;  and  in  this 
opinion  and  method  Lanfranc  followed  him.  William 
discovered  that  dropsy  may  be  due  to  a  "durities 
renum  ";  he  substituted  the  knife  for  the  Arabist  abuse 
of  the  cautery  ;  he  investigated  the  causes  of  the  failure 
of  healing  by  first  intention  ;  he  described  the  danger  of 
wounds  of  the  neck  ;  he  sutured  divided  nerves  ;  he  for- 
warded the  diagnosis  of  suppurative  disease  of  the  hip  ; 
and  he  referred  chancre  and  phagedaena  to  "their  proper 
causes. " 

Anyone  who  knows  the  history  of  surgery  and  of  sup- 
posed modern  progress  in  medicine  will  recognize  at 
once  that  many  of  these  ideas  of  Salicet  are  anticipations 
of  discoveries  supposed  to  have  been  made  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  connection  between  dropsy  and 
hardening  of  the  kidneys  is  a  typical  example  of  this. 
The  fact  that  William  should  have  insisted  that  surgery 
cannot  be  learned  from  books  is  an  open  contradiction 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  175 

of  what  is  so  frequently  said  about  scholasticism  having- 
invaded  the  realm  of  medicine,  and  the  study  of  books 
having  replaced  the  study  of  patients.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  with  his  study  of  cases  William  should  have 
recognized  the  danger  of  wounds  of  the  neck,  nor  that 
he  should  have  taught  the  suture  of  divided  nerves.  It 
cannot  fail  to  be  a  matter  of  surprise,  however,  that  he 
should  have  any  hint  of  the  possibility  of  union  by  first 
intention,  for  that  is  supposed  to  be  quite  recent,  and 
the  knowledge  he  displays  of  venereal  diseases  is  sup- 
posed to  have  come  into  medicine  and  surgery  at  least 
two  centuries  later. 

Allbutt  next  takes  up  Salicet's  great  pupil  Lanfranc. 
"  Lanfranc 's  'Chirurgia  Magna'  was  a  great  work, 
written  by  a  reverent  but  independent  follower  of  Sali- 
cet.  He  distinguished  between  venous  and  arterial 
hemorrhage,  and  used  styptics  (rabbit's  fur,  aloes,  and 
white  of  egg  was  a  popular  styptic  in  older  surgery), 
digital  compression  for  an  hour,  or  in  severe  cases  liga- 
ture. His  chapter  on  injuries  of  the  head  is  one  of  the 
classics  of  medieval  surgery.  Clerk  as  he  was,  Lanfranc 
nevertheless  saw  but  the  more  clearly  the  danger  of 
separating  surgery  from  medicine.  '  Good  God ! '  he 
exclaims,  '  why  this  abandoning  of  operations  by  phy- 
sicians to  lay  persons,  disdaining  surgery,  as  I  perceive, 
because  they  do  not  know  how  to  operate  ...  an  abuse 
which  has  reached  such  a  point  that  the  vulgar  begin  to 
think  that  the  same  man  cannot  know  medicine  and  sur- 
gery ...  I  say,  however,  that  no  man  can  be  a 
good  physician  who  has  no  knowledge  of  operative  sur- 
gery ;  a  knowledge  of  both  branches  is  essential. ' 
(Chir.  Magna.)  Is  it  not  strange  that  this  ancient  was 
wiser  than  most  of  us  are  even  yet." 


176  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Striking  as  all  this  is,  much  more  that  is  of  interest 
might  be  added  to  it  from  PagePs  account  of  Lanfranc 's 
work.  Pagel  says  that  he  has  excellent  chapters  on  the 
affections  of  the  eyes,  the  ears  and  mouth,  the  nose, 
even  the  teeth,  and  treats  of  hernia  in  a  very  practical, 
common  sense  way.  He  warns  against  the  radical  oper- 
tion,  and  says  in  phrases  that  have  often  been  repeated 
even  in  our  own  time,  that  many  surgeons  decide  on 
operations  too  easily,  not  for  the  sake  of  the  patient,  but 
for  the  sake  of  the  money  there  is  in  them.  He  believes 
that  most  of  the  danger  and  inconvenience  of  the  hernia 
can  be  removed  by  means  of  a  properly  fitting  truss.  He 
treats  of  stone  in  the  kidney,  but  insists  that  the  main 
thing  for  this  affection  is  prophylaxis.  He  suggests  that 
stone  in  the  bladder  should  first  be  treated  by  internal 
remedies  ;  but  in  severe  cases  advises  extraction.  Lan- 
franc's  discussion  of  cystotomy,  Pagel  characterizes  "as 
prudent,  yet  rational/'  for  he  considers  that  the  opera- 
tion should  not  be  feared  too  much  nor  delayed  too  long. 
In  patients  suffering  from  the  inconvenience  which  comes 
from  large  quantities  of  fluid  in  the  abdomen,  he  advises 
paracentesis  abdominis.  He  warns,  however,  against 
putting  the  patient  in  danger  from  such  an  operation 
without  due  consideration  and  only  when  symptoms  ab- 
solutely demand  it. 

Pagel  says  that  Lanfranc  must  be  considered  as  one 
of  the  greatest  of  the  surgeons  of  the  Middle  Ages  and 
the  real  founder  of  the  French  School  of  Surgery  which 
continued  to  be  the  most  prominent  in  the  world  down 
to  the  nineteenth  century.  Lanfranc  had  equalled,  if 
not  surpassed,  his  great  master  William  Salicet.  His  own 
disciple,  Mondeville,  accomplished  almost  as  much  for 
surgery  as  his  master,  however.  Both  of  them  were 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  177 

destined  to  be  thrown  into  the  shade  for  succeeding 
generations  by  another  great  French  surgeon  of  the  next 
half-century,  Guy  de  Chauliac.  Pagel  can  scarcely  say 
enough  of  the  capacity  as  a  teacher  of  Lanfranc.  The 
seeds  of  surgical  doctrine  which  he  sowed  bore  fruit 
richly.  His  important  successors  in  French  surgery 
walked  for  the  most  part  in  his  tracks  and  thus  fur- 
nished the  best  proof  of  the  enduring  character  of  his 
capacity  as  a  teacher. 

The  next  great  name  in  thirteenth  century  surgery, 
for  we  are  not  yet  out  of  that  fruitful  period,  is  Henri 
de  Mondeville.  He  was  known  by  his  contemporaries 
and  immediate  successors  as  the  most  cultured  of  the 
surgeons.  Whatever  he  wrote  bears  the  traces  of  his 
wide  reading  and  of  his  respect  for  authority,  yet  shows 
also  his  power  to  make  observations  for  himself,  and  his 
name  is  due  much  more  to  his  independent  work  both  in 
the  technics  and  the  diagnostics  of  surgery,  than  to  his 
reputation  for  scholarship  or  the  depth  of  his  culture. 
Lanfranc  (whose  name  was  Lanfranchi)  had  been  an 
Italian.  Mondeville  was- born  in  Normandy  sometime 
about  the  beginning  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  The  place  of  his  education  is  not  absolutely 
sure,  but  there  is  good  authority  for  saying  that  he  was, 
for  a  time  at  least,  in  Bologna.  On  his  return  from 
Italy  he  passed  some  time,  just  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  in  Montpelier.  He  seems  to  have 
looked  for  a  professorship  at  Montpelier,  but  instead  re- 
ceived the  appointment  as  surgeon  to  the  French  king, 
Philip  Le  Bel.  This  brought  him  to  Paris,  where  the 
first  portion  of  his  book  on  surgery  was  written  about 
1306.  This  was  not  completed  until  1312.  His  work  was 
interrupted  by  several  campaigns  on  which  he  attended 


178  THE    POPES   AND    SCIENCE 

the  king  along  the  Northern  coast.  When  he  again  took 
up  his  work  of  writing,  he  revised  what  he  had  written 
at  first  by  the  light  of  the  experience  that  he  had  ac- 
quired in  the  campaign.  Pagel  says  that  his  style  is 
lively  and  clear  and  often  full  of  meat.  Many  of  his  own 
opinions  and  experiences  are  incorporated  in  his  work, 
and  in  spite  of  his  tendency  to  display  his  erudition  by 
quotations,  his  originality  is  not  seriously  interfered 
with. 

Some  of  his  remarks  are  very  curiously  interesting  to 
the  modern.  He  seems  to  have  had  the  idea  that  por- 
tions of  metal  which  had  penetrated  the  body  as  the  re- 
sult of  explosions,  for  gun-powder  was  already  being 
used,  might  be  removed  by  means  of  a  magnet.  He 
would  not  have  been  a  distinguished  surgeon  without  in- 
venting a  needle-holder,  and  accordingly  we  find  that  he 
was  one  of  the  first  of  a  long  line  of  such  inventors.  He 
invented  certain  instruments  also  for  the  removal  of 
arrow-heads,  which  because  of  their  form  and  hooks  be- 
come firmly  imbedded  in  the  tissues.  Mondeville  had 
no  such  fear  of  trephining  as  Lanf ranc  had,  though  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  emphasize  the  value  of  expectant 
treatment  in  most  of  these  cases  of  injury  to  the  head 
that  might  seem  at  first  to  demand  the  trephine. 

Pagel  notes  the  fact  that  when  he  prescribed  drinks 
for  his  patients  this  medieval  surgeon  suggested  that 
certain  verses  of  the  psalms  which  were  usually  recited, 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  times,  whenever  anything 
was  administered  to  a  patient,  should  be  said.  Pagel 
considers  it  quite  natural  that  as  a  believing  physician 
he  should  have  realized  how  much  his  believing  patients 
would  be  influenced  for  the  better  by  such  a  procedure. 
He  did  not  place  any  supreme  faith  in  its  efficacy,  but 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  179 

knew  that  it  could  do  no  harm,  and  had  probably  seen, 
as  has  many  a  physician  and  surgeon  of  the  modern 
time,  that  such  a  practice  does  good,  if  not  by  the  direct 
interference  of  Providence,  then  at  least  by  the  calm- 
ness of  mind  which  it  superinduces  in  the  patient.  In 
the  same  way  Mondeville  was  not  averse  to  his  patients 
going  on  pilgrimages.  He  did  not  expect  that  they  would 
all  be  cured  miraculously,  but  according  to  Pagel,  his 
discussion  of  this  subject  is  quite  modern.  Travel  and 
change  of  scene  would  do  good  anyhow  in  many  cases, 
expectancy  would  help  the  patient's  condition,  and  the 
hope  aroused  was  also  good.  The  best  merit,  however, 
of  this  French  surgeon  is  undoubtedly  the  immense  in- 
fluence which  he  exerted  over  his  great  successor,  Guy 
de  Chauliac. 

We  are  really  only  beginning  to  accumulate  knowledge 
with  regard  to  the  surgery  of  the  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries.  Pagel  has  devoted  three  very  full 
pages,  in  his  compressed  account  of  surgery,  to  John 
Yperman,  a  surgeon  of  the  early  fourteenth  century  of 
whom  practically  nothing  was  known  until  about  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  when  the  Belgian  historian  Broeck 
brought  to  light  his  works  and  gathered  some  details  of 
his  life.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Lanfranc's,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  thirteenth  century  studied  at  Paris  on  a  scholar- 
ship provided  by  his  native  town  of  Ypres,  which  delib- 
erately sent  him  in  order  that  he  might  become  expert 
in  surgery.  This  may  seem  a  strange  thing  for  a  me- 
dieval town  to  do,  at  least  it  may  seem  so  to  those  who 
have  been  accustomed  to  think  little  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
but  it  will  not  to  anyone  who  knows  anything  about  the 
wonderful  civic  spirit  of  the  Free  Towns.  In  the  chapter 
on  Science  at  the  Medieval  Universities  I  have  quoted 


180  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

from  Prince  Kropotkin's  work  on  Mutual  Aid  in  the  Me- 
dieval Towns,  and  further  consultation  of  that  as  a  ready 
reference,  would  make  all  cause  for  ignorant  surprise 
with  regard  to  the  culture  and  the  enterprise  of  medieval 
towns  disappear.  Ypres,  while  a  town  of  only  fifteen 
thousand  inhabitants  now,  was  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant towns  of  Flanders  in  the  Middle  Ages,  noted  for  its 
manufacture  of  linens  and  fine  laces,  and  has  a  hand- 
some cathedral  dating  from  the  thirteenth  century  and 
a  town  hall,  the  famous  Cloth  Hall,  from  the  same  pe- 
riod, which  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  architectural 
monuments  in  Europe  and  one  of  the  finest  municipal 
buildings  in  the  world. 

After  his  return  Yperman  settled  down  in  his  native 
town  and  practiced  surgery  until  his  death,  which  prob- 
ably took  place  about  1330.  He  obtained  a  great  renown, 
and  this  has  been  maintained  so  that  in  that  part  of  the 
country  even  yet,  an  expert  surgeon  is  spoken  of  as  an 
Yperman.  He  is  the  author  of  two  works  in  Flemish. 
One  of  these  is  what  Pagel  calls  an  unimportant  compi- 
lation on  internal  medicine,  but  the  headings  of  the  chap- 
ters as  he  gives  them  can  scarcely  fail  to  attract  the 
attention  of  the  modern  physician.  He  treats  of  dropsy, 
rheumatism,  under  which  occur  the  terms  coryza  and 
catarrh,  icterus,  phthisis  (he  calls  the  tuberculous, 
tysiken),  apoplexy,  epilepsy,  frenzy,  lethargy,  fallen 
palate,  cough,  shortness  of  breath,  lung  abscess,  hem- 
orrhage, blood-spitting,  liver  abscess,  hardening  of  the 
spleen,  affections  of  the  kidney,  bloody  urine,  diabetes, 
incontinence  of  urine,  dysuria,  strangury,  gonorrhrea 
and  involuntary  seminal  emissions— all  these  terms  are 
quoted  directly  from  Pagel. 

All  this  would  seem  to  show  that  Yperman  was  a 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  181 

thoroughly  representative  medical  man.  When  I  add  that 
Pagel  says  he  shows  a  well  marked  striving  to  free  him- 
self from  the  bondage  of  authority  and  that  most  of  his 
therapeutic  prescriptions  rest  upon  his  own  experience, 
it  will  be  seen  that  he  deserves  the  greatest  possible 
credit.  His  work  in  medicine,  however,  Pagel  considers 
as  nothing  compared  to  his  work  in  surgery.  A  special 
feature  of  this  is  the  presence  of  seventy  illustrations  of 
instruments  of  the  most  various  kinds,  together  with  a 
plate  showing  the  anatomical  features  of  the  stitching 
of  a  wound  of  the  head.  The  work  as  we  have  it  is 
only  a  fragment.  The  last  part  of  it  which  treated  of 
the  extremities  is  defective.  If  anyone  thinks  for  a 
moment  that  surgery  was  a  neglected  specialty  at  the 
end  of  the  thirteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  he  should  consult  the  text  of  this,  or 
even  PageF  s  brief  account  of  its  contents.  Some  of  the 
features  of  it  are  noteworthy.  There  is  a  chapter  de- 
voted to  intoxications,  which  includes  the  effects  of  can- 
tharides  as  well  as  alcohol,  and  treats  of  the  bites  of 
snakes,  scorpions,  and  of  hydrophobia  due  to  the  bites 
of  mad  hounds.  There  is  scarcely  a  feature  of  modern 
surgery  of  the  head  that  is  not  touched  upon  very  sen- 
sibly in  this  work. 

The  best  proof,  however,  at  once  of  the  flourishing  state 
of  surgery  during  the  fourteenth  century  and  of  the 
utter  absurdity  of  saying  that  surgery  did  not  develop 
because  of  the  opposition  of  the  Church  or  of  ecclesias- 
tics, and  above  all  of  the  Popes,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
life  of  Guy  de  Chauliac,  who  has  been  deservedly  called 
the  Father  of  Modern  Surgery  and  whose  contributions 
to  surgery  occupy  a  prominent  place  in  every  history  of 
medicine  that  one  picks  up.  While  the  works  of  other 


182  THE    POPES  AND    SCIENCE 

great  writers  in  surgery  of  the  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries  have  as  a  rule  only  come  to  be  com- 
monly known  during  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  Guy  de  Chauliac's  position  -and  the  significance 
of  his  work  and  his  writings  have  been  a  commonplace 
in  the  history  of  medicine  for  as  long  as  it  has  been 
written  seriously.  We  have  already  stated  in  several 
places  in  this  volume  his  relations  to  the  Popes.  He 
was  a  chamberlain  of  the  Papal  Court  while  it  was  at 
Avignon,  and  while  he  was  teaching  and  developing  sur- 
gery at  the  University  of  Montpelier  he  was  also  body 
physician  to  three  of  the  Popes,  and  the  intimate  friend 
and  influential  adviser  to  whom  they  turned  for  consul- 
tation in  matters  relating  to  medical  education  and  to 
science  generally. 

In  the  present  chapter,  then,  we  shall  only  discuss  the 
contributions  to  surgery  of  this  surgeon  of  the  Popes, 
at  a  time  when,  according  to  President  White,  because 
of  Church  opposition,  surgery  was  considered  dishonor- 
able ;  "when  the  greatest  monarchs  were  often  unable  to 
secure  an  ordinary  surgical  operation,  and  when  it  re- 
quired an  edict  of  the  German  Emperor  in  order  that 
dishonor  should  no  longer  attach  to  the  surgical  profes- 
sion." This  is  what  Chauliac  accomplished,  according  to 
Professor  Allbutt : 

"Of  his  substantial  advances  in  surgery  no  sufficient 
account  is  possible  ;  but  some  chief  points,  with  the  aid 
of  Haeser,  Malgaigne,  and  Nicaise,  I  may  briefly  sum 
up  thus  :  He  pointed  out  the  dangers  of  surgery  of  the 
neck,  among  them  that  of  injuring  the  voice  by  section 
of  the  recurrent  laryngeal  nerve,  a  precaution  he  prob- 
ably learned  from  Paul.  He  urges  a  low  diet  for  the 
wounded,  as  did  Mondeville  and  many  others.  He  uses 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  183 

sutures  well  and  discreetly  (p.  9) ,  but  with  far  too  many 
salves.  On  fractures  of  the  skull  he  is  at  his  best ;  he 
noted  the  escape  of  cerebro-spinal  fluid,  and  the  effect 
of  pressure  on  the  respiration.  It  is  somewhat  strange 
that  in  days  of  war  the  study  of  chest  wounds  had 
been  rather  neglected  by  Galen,  Haly,  and  Avicenna ; 
their  practice,  however,  was  to  leave  them  open,  lest 
pus  should  gather  about  the  heart.  Theodoric  and 
Henry  ordered  chest  wounds  to  be  closed  '  lest  the  vital 
spirits  escape/  Guy  also  closed  these  wounds,  unless 
there  were  any  effusion  to  be  removed.  In  empyema  he 
objects  to  caustics  and  prefers  the  knife.  For  haem- 
orrhages he  used  sutures— a  little  too  closely  perhaps— 
styptics,  cautery  or  ligature.  Sinuses  he  dilated  with 
tents  of  gentian  root,  or  he  incised  them  upon  a  director. 
On  ulcers  his  large  experience  is  fully  manifest.  He 
describes  the  carcinomatous  kind  as  hopeless,  unless  the 
mass  can  be  excised  at  a  very  early  stage  and  the  inci- 
sion followed  by  caustics.  If  in  fractures  and  disloca- 
tions he  tells  us  nothing  new,  these  sections  testify  to 
a  remarkable  fulness  of  knowledge  at  a  period  when 
the  Hippocratic  treatises  were  unknown.  Haeser  says 
that  in  respect  of  position  in  fractured  femur  he  was  the 
best  physician  in  the  Middle  Ages." 

This  is  the  period,  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  when,  ac- 
cording to  President  White,  surgery  was  in  such  a  state 
that  the  application  of  various  ordures  relieved  fractures ; 
the  touch  of  the  hangman  cured  sprains ;  the  breath  of  a 
donkey  expelled  poison ;  friction  with  a  dead  man's  tooth 
cured  a  toothache.1 

1  Quite  as  curious  notions  as  these  which  President  White  mentions  still  exist  in 
popular  medicine  in  our  own  day.  I  have  myself  known  a  man  to  blow  the  dried  ex- 
crement of  the  dog  into  the  throat  of  his  child  suffering  from  diphtheria,  and  he  as- 
sured me  that  it  cured  him.  In  the  country  districts  they  still  use  ordure  poultices 


184  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  possibly  Professor  All- 
butt  had  been  rather  partial  to  the  great  Father  of  Mod- 
ern Surgery  in  his  enthusiasm  for  these  medieval  sur- 
geons, it  seems  worth  while  to  compress  here  some- 
thing of  what  Pagel  has  to  say  with  regard  to  this  great 
man,  who  represents  in  himself  a  full  hundred  years  of 
progress  in  surgery.  He  wrote  an  immense  text-book 
of  surgery,  from  which  his  teaching  may  be  learned  with 
absolute  authenticity.  The  great  significance  attached 
to  Guy's  writings  by  his  contemporaries  and  successors 
will  be  readily  appreciated  from  the  immense  number  of 
manuscript  copies,  original  editions  in  print,  and  the 
many  translations  which  are  extant.  This  monument 
of  scientific  surgery  has  for  dedication  a  sentence  that 
would  alone  and  of  itself  obliterate  all  the  nonsense  that 
has  been  talked  about  Papal  opposition  to  the  develop- 
ment of  surgery.  It  runs  as  follows  :— 

(I  dedicate  this  work)  "To  you  my  masters,  physi- 
cians of  Montpelier,  Bologna,  Paris,  and  Avignon,  es- 
pecially you  of  the  Papal  Court  with  whom  I  have  been 
associated  in  the  service  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs.  The 
exact  words  as  given  by  Pagel  are  "  Vobis  dominis  meis 
medicis  Montispessulani,  Bononia9,  Parisiis  atque  Avini- 
onis,  praecipue  papalibus,  quibus  me  in  servitio  Roma- 
norum  pontificum  associavi." 

Pagel  has  three  closely  printed  pages  in  small  type  of 
titles  alone  of  subjects  which  Chauliac  treated  with  dis- 


f  or  sprains  of  various  kinds,  and  I  have  known  doctors  prescribe  them.  I  have  seen  an 
intelligent  woman  smoking  dried  angleworms  in  a  pipe  for  toothache.  I  sincerely 
hope,  however,  that  no  serious  (!)  historian  of  the  twenty-fifth  century  will  gather  up 
side  remarks  like  the  present  with  regard  to  such  curious  customs— real  superstitions 
that  have  nothing  to  do  with  religion,  as  most  supersititions  have  not— and  state  them 
as  showing  the  ignorance  of  our  generation,  and  above  all  as  indicating  the  low  state 
of  medicine  in  our  time. 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  185 

tinction.  His  description  of  instruments  and  methods  of 
operation  is  especially  full  and  suggestive.  He  knew 
how  to  prescribe  manipulations  and  set  forth  the  princi- 
ples on  which  they  were  founded.  Scarcely  anything 
was  added  to  his  method  of  taxis  for  hernia  for  five  cen- 
turies after  his  time.  He  describes  the  passage  of  a 
catheter  with  the  accuracy  and  complete  technic  of  a 
man  who  knew  all  the  difficulties  of  it  in  complicated 
conditions.  He  recognizes  the  dangers  that  arise  for 
the  surgeon  from  the  presence  of  anatomical  anomalies 
of  various  kinds,  and  describes  certain  of  the  more  im- 
portant of  them.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  suggest  some 
very  serious  operations.  For  instance,  for  empyema  he 
advises  opening  of  the  chest.  He  has  very  exact  indi- 
cations for  trephining.  He  recognizes  the  absolute  fa- 
tality of  wounds  of  the  abdomen,  in  which  the  intestines 
were  opened,  if  they  were  left  untreated,  and  describes 
a  method  of  suturing  wounds  of  the  intestines  in  order 
to  save  the  patient's  life.  In  a  word,  there  is  nothing 
that  has  been  attempted  in  these  modern  times,  with  our 
aseptic  precautions  and  the  advantage  of  anaesthesia, 
which  this  father  of  surgery  did  not  discuss  very  practi- 
cally and  with  excellent  common  sense  as  well  as  surgi- 
cal acumen. 

Chauliac's  career  is  interesting  because  it  is  that  of  a 
self-made  man  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  brings  out  the 
fact  that  men  do  not  differ  so  much  as  might  be  thought 
at  this  distance  of  time,  and  shows  that  there  were 
chances  for  a  man  to  rise  by  his  own  genius  from  a  lowly 
to  a  lofty  position  at  this  time  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when 
it  is  usually  supposed  that  men  were  excluded  from  such 
opportunities.  Allbutt  says  of  him  : 

"  Still,  Guy  of  Chauliac,  who  flourished  in  the  second 


186  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

half  of  the  fourteenth  century,  was  enabled  to  feed  his 
virile  and  inquisitive  spirit  on  rich  sources  of  learning. 
While  he  succeeded  to  the  stores  of  Arnold  (of  Villanova) 
and  Gordon  with  his  just  and  cautious  reason  and  wealth 
of  experience,  he  cast  out  of  them  much  of  the  sorcery, 
jugglery,  astrology  and  mysticism  which  were  their 
reproach.  Chauliac  is  a  village  in  the  Auvergne,  and 
Guy  was  but  a  farmer's  lad.  It  was  by  the  aid  of  pow- 
erful friends  that  he  studied  at  Toulouse  and  Montpelier, 
took  orders  and  the  degree  of  Master  of  Medicine;  in  his 
time  there  was  no  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine  in 
France.  Then  he  studied  anatomy  at  Bologna  under 
Bertruccio,  the  successor  of  Mondino,  a  study  which, 
with  Henry  (de  Mondeville)  he  regarded  as  the  founda- 
tion of  surgery.  The  surgeon  ignorant  of  anatomy,  he 
says,  "carves  the  human  body  as  a  blind  man  carves 
wood."1 

"Thence  he  paid  a  brief  visit  to  Paris,  where  for  a  mo- 
ment, by  the  renown  of  Lanfranc,  Jean  Pitard,  and 
Henry  of  Mondeville,  surgery  was  in  the  ascendant.  For 
the  moment  the  Church  and  the  faculty  had  not  suc- 
ceeded in  paralyzing  the  scientific  arm  of  medicine.2 

1  This  is  a  very  striking  reflection  on  the  necessity  for  the  study  of  anatomy  for 
the  practice  of  surgery  to  have  been  made  within  a  half  century  after  the  supposed 
prohibition  of  dissection  by  the  Popes,  and  at  a  time  when,  according  to  President 
White,  "  even  such  serious  matters  as  fractures,  calculi  and  difficult  parturition,  in 
which  modern  science  has  achieved  some  of  its  greatest  triumphs,  were  dealt  with  by 
relics,"  and  when  "there  were  religious  scruples  against  dissection,"  and  surgery 
"was  denounced  by  the  Church,"  and  when  "pastoral  medicine  had  checked  all 
scientific  effort  in  medical  science."     And  the  reflection  was  made  by  a  chamberlain 
of  the  Papal  household. 

2  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  how  even  Prof.  Allbutt,  in  a  passage  like  this,  where  he  13 
providing  abundant  material  for  the  contradiction  of  the  English  Protestant  tradition 
of  the  supposed  opposition  of  the  Church  to  science,  and  especially  to  surgery,  yet 
cannot  break  away  from  the  influence  of  that  tradition  entirely.    It  has  been  bred  in 
him,  and  even  while  showing  its  falsity  he  is  not  entirely  convinced  himself,  because; 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  187 

Guy  began  practice  in  Lyons,  whence  he  was  called  to 
Avignon  by  Clement  VI.  as  '  venerabilis  et  circumspec- 
tus  vir,  dominus  Guido  de  Cauliaco,  canonicus  et  prsepo- 
situs  ecclesiae  Sancti  Justi  Lugduni,  medicusque  domini 
nostri  Papae. '  In  Avignon  he  stayed,  while  other  phy- 
sicians fled,  to  minister  to  the  victims  of  the  plague  (A.  D. , 
1348) ,  and  he  may  have  attended  Laura  in  spite  of  Pe- 
trarch's tirades  against  all  physicians  and  even  against 
Guy  himself.  His  description  of  this  epidemic  is  terri- 
ble in  its  naked  simplicity.  He  did  not,  indeed,  himself 
escape,  for  he  had  an  attack  with  bubo,  and  was  ill  for 
six  weeks.  He  gave  succor  also  in  a  later  epidemic  in 
Avignon,  in  1360.  His  '  Chirurgia  Magna '  or  Inventa- 
rium  seu  Collectorium  Artis  Chirurgicalis  Medicinaa— so 
called  in  distinction  to  the  meagre  little  handbooks  or 
Chirurgiae  Parvae  compiled  from  the  larger  treatises— 
was  in  preparation  in  1363.  This  great  work  I  have 
studied  carefully,  and  not  without  prejudice  ;  and  yet  I 
cannot  wonder  that  Fallopius  compared  the  author  to 
Hippocrates,  or  that  John  Freind  calls  him  the  Prince  of 
Surgeons.  It  is  rich,  aphoristic,  orderly  and  precise. 
As  a  clerk  he  wrote  in  Latin,  in  the  awkward  hybrid 
tongue  that  medical  Latin  then  was,  containing  many 
Arabian,  Provencal  and  French  words,  but  very  little 
Greek. " 

We  have  seen  that  there  was  great  surgery  in  Italy, 
in  France,  and  in  the  Netherlands,  but  it  had  also  crossed 
the  channel  into  England. 

There  was  a  famous  English  surgeon  during  the  four- 

the  old  mode  of  view  has  so  firm  a  hold  on  him  that  he  is  not  open  to  conviction.  A 
little  later  in  this  same  passage  he  speaks  of  taking  up  the  study  of  Chauliac,  pre- 
judiced against  him,  and  being  convinced  of  his  greatness  against  his  will.  Verily 
history  has  been  a  conspiracy  against  the  truth,  in  which  many  people  have  joined 
almost  unconsciously,  led  astray  by  feeling,  not  intellect. 


188  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

teenth  century  by  the  name  of  John  Ardern.  He  was 
educated  at  Montpelier  and  practiced  surgery  for  a  time 
in  France.  About  the  middle  of  the  century,  however, 
according  to  Pagel,  he  went  back  to  his  native  land  and 
settled  for  some  twenty  years  at  Newark,  in  Notting- 
hamshire, and  then  for  nearly  thirty  years  longer,  until 
nearly  the  end  of  the  century,  was  in  London.  He  is 
the  chief  representative  of  English  surgery  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  His  Practice,  as  yet  unprinted,  contains, 
according  to  Pagel,  a  short  sketch  of  internal  medicine, 
but  is  mainly  devoted  to  surgery.  Contrary  to  the  usual 
impression  with  regard  to  works  in  medicine  and  surgery 
at  this  time,  the  book  abounds  in  references  to  case  his- 
tories which  Ardern  had  gathered,  partly  from  his  own 
and  partly  from  others'  experience.  The  therapeutic 
measures  that  he  suggests  are  usually  very  simple,  in 
the  majority  of  cases  quite  rational,  though,  of  course, 
there  are  many  superstitions  among  them  ;  but  Ardern 
always  furnished  a  number  of  suggestions  from  which 
to  choose.  He  must  have  been  an  expert  operator,  and 
had  excellent  success  in  the  treatment  of  diseases  of  the 
rectum.  He  seems  to  have  been  the  first  operator  who 
made  statistics  of  his  cases,  and  was  quite  as  proud  as 
any  modern  surgeon,  of  the  large  numbers  that  he  had 
operated  on,  which  he  gives  very  exactly.  He  was  the 
inventor  of  a  new  clyster  apparatus. 

Daremberg,  the  medical  historian,  who  saw  a  copy  of 
Ardern' s  manuscript  in  St.  John's  College,  Oxford,  says 
that  it  contains  numerous  illustrations  of  instruments 
and  operations.  His  work  seems  really  to  be  a  series  of 
monographs  or  collection  of  special  articles  on  different 
subjects,  which  Ardern  had  made  at  various  times, 
rather  than  a  connected  work.  Pagel  bewails  the  fact 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  139 

that  a  more  thorough  consideration  of  Ardern's  work  is 
impossible,  because  the  greater  part  of  what  he  wrote 
remains  as  yet  unprinted. 

In  general,  when  we  consider  how  difficult  was  the 
task  of  making  copies  of  works  on  surgery  by  hand,  and 
especially  such  as  contain  numerous  illustrations,  the 
wonder  grows  that  we  should  have  so  much  about  the 
surgery  of  these  centuries  rather  than  so  little.  Some  of 
these  works  have  been  preserved  for  us  by  the  merest 
chance.  There  have  been  many  centuries  since  their 
time,  when  what  these  surgeons  wrote  would  have  been 
thought  of  very  little  value  because  physicians  were  not 
educated  up  to  them.  In  spite  of  this  liability  to  loss, 
which  must  have  caused  the  destruction  of  many  valu- 
able works,  we  still  have  enough  to  show  us  what  won- 
derful men  were  these  surgeons  of  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries,  who  anticipated  our  best  thinking 
of  the  modern  times  in  many  of  the  most  difficult 
problems.  It  is  only  during  the  last  twenty-five  years 
that  anything  like  justice  has  been  done  them.  The  only 
way  to  know  what  these  men  did  and  taught  is  to  read 
their  own  works,  and  these  have  been  buried  in  manu- 
script or  hidden  away  in  large  folio  volumes,  printed  very 
early  in  the  history  of  printing,  and  considered  so  valu- 
able that  consultation  of  them  was  almost  resented  by 
librarians.  Anyone  who  talks  about  the  lack  of  surgery 
in  Europe  during  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries 
is  supremely  ignorant  of  the  real  course  of  history  at 
this  time,  and  when  in  addition  he  attributes  the  failure 
of  surgery  to  develop  to  a  trumped-up  opposition  of  the 
Church  or  ecclesiastics,  he  is  simply  making  a  ridiculous 
exhibition  of  intolerance  and  of  foolish  readiness  to 
accept  anything,  however  groundless,  that  may  en- 


190  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

able  him  to  make  out  a  case  against  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities. 

It  is  curious  to  reflect  that  in  spite  of  all  this  wonder- 
ful progress  in  surgery,  somehow  there  has  crept  in  the 
tradition  which  has  been  very  generally  accepted  by  his- 
torians not  acquainted  with  the  details  of  medical  his- 
tory, that  surgery  was  neglected  during  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries.  The  existence  of  this  tradition, 
and  its  acceptance  by  men  who  had  no  idea  that  they 
were  being  influenced  by  that  peculiar  state  of  mind 
which  considers  that  nothing  good  can  come  out  of  the 
Nazareth  of  the  times  before  the  reformation  so-called, 
is  of  itself  a  warning  with  regard  to  the  way  history  has 
been  written,  especially  for  the  Teutonic  and  English- 
speaking  peoples,  that  should  carry  weight  in  other  de- 
partments of  history  beside  medicine  and  surgery. 

Even  Pagel  could  not  get  entirely  away  from  the  old 
tradition  which  has  existed  for  so  long,  that  the  Church, 
if  she  did  not  oppose,  at  least  hampered  the  progress  of 
surgery.  While  his  first  paragraph  shows  that  he 
recognized  the  important  advances  that  were  made  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  he  cannot  rid  himself  of  the  prejudice 
that  has  existed  so  long  and  has  tinged  so  much  of  the 
historical  writing  of  the  last  four  centuries.  He  fur- 
nishes an  abundance  of  material  himself  to  disprove  the 
old  opinion,  and  evidently  has  been  influenced  by  this 
evidence,  but  cannot  give  up  notions  that  have  been  part 
and  parcel  of  his  education  from  his  earliest  days  in 
Protestant  Germany.  He  says  :— 

''A  set-back  must  also  be  recognized  to  some  extent 
in  surgery,  especially  attributable  to  the  fact  that  as 
a  consequence  of  the  pressure  of  the  Church  upon 
scientific  medicine,  the  representatives  of  medical 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  191 

science  felt  themselves  bound  to  neglect  the  practical 
art  of  surgical  operation.  Church  regulations  forbade 
the  shedding  of  blood  to  churchmen,  and  not  a  few  phy- 
sicians were  more  than  inclined  to  accept  this  prohibi- 
tion as  in  accordance  with  their  own  feelings.  For  this 
reason  the  practice  of  surgery  was  left  for  the  most  part 
to  the  lower  orders  of  those  engaged  in  healing.  This 
went  to  such  an  extent,  that  physicians  even  came  to 
look  upon  surgery  as  an  unworthy  occupation.  Even 
venesection,  which  was  so  commonly  employed  and  which 
came  to  be  indispensable  to  the  practice  of  internal 
medicine,  made  it  necessary  to  call  for  the  services  of  a 
barber-surgeon. '  ' 

As  we  shall  see,  there  were  many  other  and  much 
more  important  factors  at  work  in  the  degradation  of 
surgery  than  the  supposed  repression  of  the  Church. 
The  time  to  which  Pagel  refers  is  in  the  earlier  centuries 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  not  the  later  ones ;  yet  it  is 
from  these  later  centuries  that  the  supposed  prohibitory 
decrees  are  all  quoted.  The  contempt  for  surgery  was 
due  rather  to  the  general  lack  of  culture  before  the 
foundation  of  the  universities  than  to  any  ecclesiastical 
repression.  Just  as  soon  as  the  great  medical  schools 
were  opened— and  that  at  Salerno  came  into  existence  in 
the  early  part  of  the  tenth  century  if  not  earlier— sur- 
gery began  to  be  in  honor.  Pagel  himself  confesses  this 
in  the  very  next  paragraph  of  this  brief  conspectus  of 
surgery,  and  shows  how  generally  was  the  uplift  of 
surgery  made  possible  by  university  education,  though 
there  still  remained  many  drawbacks  to  progress  because 
of  the  jealousy  of  physicians. 

' '  Gradually,  however,  a  beneficial  transformation  of 
customs  in  this  matter  began  to  be  manifest.  Physicians 


192  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

who  were  scientifically  trained  began  to  take  up  surgery 
with  enthusiasm,  and  from  that  time  (end  of  twelfth 
century)  dates  the  visible  uplift  of  this  specialty. 
Eventually  the  most  noteworthy  literary  events  and  re- 
mains of  the  representatives  of  the  great  schools  of  the 
Middle  Ages— Salerno,  Bologna,  Paris  and  Montpelier— 
concern  quite  as  much  the  department  of  surgery  as  of 
practical  medicine.  These  medieval  literary  contributions 
constitute  the  principal  steps  in  the  historical  develop- 
ment of  scientific  surgery.  The  Crusades  represent  an 
extremely  important  influence  upon  the  perfecting  of 
the  surgery  of  wounds.  Italian  surgeons  in  large  num- 
bers took  prominent  parts  therein.  They  took  the  abun- 
dant opportunities  afforded  them  to  gather  experience, 
which  they  used  to  great  advantage  in  their  practice  and 
in  their  teaching  after  their  return  home.  From  Roger, 
the  first  and  most  important  of  the  representatives  of 
the  Salernitan  school  (whose  life  occupies  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  and  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century) , 
and  down  to  Guy  de  Chauliac  (who  died  toward  the  end 
of  the  fourteenth  century) ,  in  a  space  therefore  of  not 
quite  two  hundred  years,  a  complete  breach  with  the 
blood-fearing  traditions  of  the  Arabs  was  made.  In  no 
European  land  does  one  fail  to  find  evidence  of  intense 
as  well  as  successful  scientific  occupation  with  surgery. " 
As  a  reflection  that  throws  a  brilliant  light  on  the  true 
conditions  that  brought  about  the  diminished  estimation 
in  which  surgery  came  to  be  held,  Guy  de  Chauliac  has 
an  interesting  passage  in  which  he  suggests  an  explana- 
tion for  it,  which  is  surely  much  nearer  the  truth  than 
any  modern  explanation  is  likely  to  be.  He  says  that, 
after  the  time  of  the  Arabs,  who  were  all  both  physicians 
and  surgeons,  either  because  of  the  lack  of  interest  of 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  193 

physicians  or  their  laziness,  for  the  practice  of  surgery 
is  a  difficult  matter,  or  because  they  came  to  be  too 
much  occupied  with  the  ills  which  they  might  hope  to 
cure  by  medicines  alone,  surgery  became  separated  from 
medicine  and  passed  down  into  the  hands  of  mere 
mechanics.  This  is  a  complaint  not  infrequently  heard 
even  at  the  present  day,  that  medicine  and  surgery  are 
drawing  too  much  apart  for  the  good  of  either  specialty. 
Both  the  Regius  Professors  of  medicine  in  England  have 
recently  insisted  that  physicians  must  of  tener  be  present 
at  operations  if  they  would  really  appreciate  the  value 
of  diagnosis,  while  there  has  been  for  many  years  a 
feeling  that  surgery  would  be  benefitted  if  surgeons  did 
not  always  wish  to  have  recourse  to  the  knife,  but  ap- 
preciated how  much  good  might  be  accomplished  by  other 
remedial  measures.  The  great  French  Father  of  Surgery, 
then,  was  only  expressing  what  was  to  be  a  perennial 
complaint  in  the  domain  of  medicine  and  surgery  when 
he  explained  the  separation  of  the  two  departments  of 
healing.  He  has  nothing  whatever  to  say  of  the  evil 
influence  upon  surgery  of  any  Church  regulations,  though 
he  must  have  been  in  a  position  to  realize  their  signifi- 
cance very  well  in  this  respect  if  they  actually  had  any. 
He  was  himself,  as  we  have  said,  a  member  of  the  Papal 
household  ;  he  was  even  a  cleric,  and  seems  to  have  en- 
countered no  difficulty  at  all  not  only  in  devoting  himself 
to  surgery,  but  even  in  lifting  up  that  department  of 
medicine  from  the  slough  of  neglect  into  which  it  had 
fallen  because  of  the  lack  of  initiative  of  preceding 
generations  in  his  native  land. 

It  may  be  wondered,  then,  how  the  tradition  of  oppo- 
sition to  surgery,  which  is  so  common  in  history,  had  its 
origin.  Nearly  always  for  these  exaggerated  stories 


194  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

there  is  some  basis  of  truth.  For  instance,  with  regard 
to  the  opposition  to  Vesalius,  the  origin  of  the  stories 
of  persecution  by  the  Church  and  ecclesiastical  authori- 
ties is  evidently  the  fact  that  he  was  very  much  opposed 
by  the  old-time  physicians  and  surgeons,  who  believed 
in  Galen  and  thought  it  worse  than  heresy  to  break  with 
him.  It  is  the  opposition  of  scientists,  or  pseudo-scien- 
tists, to  scientific  progress  that  constitutes  the  real  bar 
to  advance,  and  has  over  and  over  again  been  attributed 
to  religious  motives,  when  it  is  really  due  to  that  very 
human  overconservatism,  which  so  constantly  places 
men  in  the  position  of  opponents  to  novelties  of  any  kind, 
no  matter  how  much  of  value  they  may  eventually  prove 
to  have.  There  has  always  existed  a  certain  prejudice 
against  surgery  on  the  part  of  physicians— meaning  by 
that  term,  for  the  moment,  those  who  devote  themselves 
to  internal  medicine.  This  feeling  has  never  quite  died 
out.  There  were  times  in  the  Middle  Ages  when  it  was 
very  marked.  Not  a  little  of  the  feeling  is  due  to  pro- 
fessional jealousy,  and  that,  it  is  to  be  feared,  like  the 
poor,  we  shall  have  always  with  us. 

Professor  Allbutt  has  in  the  address  at  St.  Louis,  al- 
ready quoted  from,  a  very  interesting  passage  with  re- 
gard to  the  College  of  St.  Come  at  Paris,  in  which  this 
jealousy  between  physicians  and  surgeons  is  very  well 
brought  out.  I  quote  it  here  in  order  to  illustrate  once 
more  that  opposition  of  scientists  to  scientific  advance, 
for  personal  reasons,  which  has  always  existed,  is  still 
one  of  the  features  of  the  history  of  science,  and  will 
probably  always  continue  to  be  a  noteworthy  phase  of 
scientific  progress.  It  will  serve  at  the  same  time  to 
furnish  to  those  who  cannot  think  that  these  stories  with 
regard  to  the  hampering  of  surgical  development  are  en- 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  195 

tirely  without  foundation,  some  basis  for  them  that  will 
account  for  their  universality,  but  will  only  render  clear- 
er the  intolerance  of  those  who  have  constantly  perverted 
the  meaning  of  this  opposition  to  persecution  on  the  part 
of  Church  authorities.  Ecclesiastics  not  only  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  this,  but  more  often  than  not  were  the 
active  factors  in  such  amelioration  of  the  conditions  it 
brought  about  as  very  much  to  lessen  its  effects. 

Allbutt's  story  of  the  College  of  Surgeons  of  St.  Come 
at  Paris  is,  as  we  have  said,  interesting  from  this  stand- 
point. "  Some  of  my  readers  may  wonder  how  it  is  that 
in  discoursing  of  medieval  surgery  I  have  not  dwelt  upon 
the  Surgical  College  of  St.  Come  of  Paris.  Well,  St. 
Come  did  no  great  things  for  surgery.  The  truth  is  that, 
infected  with  the  exclusiveness  and  dialectical  conceits 
of  all  the  schools  of  Paris,  St.  Come  was  almost  ready 
to  sacrifice  surgery  itself  if  thereby  it  might  choke  off  its 
parasites,  the  barbers.  Lest  they  should  be  suspected 
of  mixing  their  philosophy  with  facts,  its  members  went 
about  with  their  hands  ostentatiously  tied  behind  them. 
If  perhaps  Malgaigne  speaks  too  contemptuously  of  St. 
Come,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  college  was  in  a  false 
position  throughout.  In  aping  the  Faculty  of  Medicine, 
it  lost  the  touch  of  mother  earth  without  gaining  any 
harbourage  in  the  deep  waters  of  the  proud.  Nay,  such 
is  the  Nemesis  of  pride,  the  barbers  came  to  command 
the  position.  It  did  not  suit  the  Faculty  to  see  the  bar- 
bers weakened  ;  for  in  their  weakness  lay  the  strength 
of  the  surgeons  of  St.  Come,  who  sought  incessantly  to 
appear  as  lettered  clerks,  to  attach  their  college  to  the 
university,  and  even  to  claim  a  place  beside  the  Faculty 
itself.  To  bring  St.  Come  to  its  knees,  and  to  check  the 
presumptuous  claims  of  this  corporation  on  the  privi- 


196  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

leges  of  the  Faculty  of  Medicine,  on  a  liberal  education 
in  arts  and  medicine,  on  a  place  in  the  university,  on  the 
suppression  of  unqualified  surgical  practice,  and  less, 
honourably,  on  relief  from  handicraft  and  urgent  calls, 
the  Faculty  had  to  coquette  with  the  barbers.  Medicine, 
proclaimed  the  Faculty  when  it  suited  its  purpose,  con- 
tains the  theoretical  and  the  practical  side  of  surgery  ; 
a  surgeon  is  therefore  but  the  servant  of  a  physician.  If 
St.  Come  sought  to  provide  lectures  in  surgery,  the  Fac- 
ulty, which  kept  possession  of  teaching  licenses  and  de- 
sired in  the  surgeon  a  docile  assistant,  took  the  teaching 
from  the  college  and  invited  the  barbers  to  lectures  of  its 
own.  In  their  duplicity  and  conceit  of  caste,  physicians 
of  the  Faculty  condescended  even  to  publish  books  on 
surgery,  books  as  arid  and  as  insincere  as  their  lectures. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  the  person  of  the  King's  Barber, 
the  barbers  had  a  secret  and  potent  influence  at  Court. 
The  Faculty  persisted  in  denying  to  St.  Come  all  '  eso- 
teric '  teaching,  all  diagnosis,  and  all  use  of  medical  thera- 
peutics. Aristotle  was  pronounced  to  be  unfavorable  to 
the  '  vulgarizing  of  science. '  Joubert  was  attacked  for 
editing  Guy,  but  replied  with  dignity  (in  the  notes  of  his 
edition) .  While  the  Faculty  thus  tried  to  prevent  the 
access  to  letters  of  a  presumptuous  body  of  artisans,  St. 
Come  in  mimic  arrogance  disdained  the  barbers,  sought 
to  deny  them  the  name  of  surgeon,  and  was  jealous  of 
the  diffusion  of  technical  knowledge  among  them  in  the 
vernacular  tongue. ' n 

1  As  showing  how  professional  jealously  may  exist  in  such  ways  in  the  modern  times 
as  to  hinder  progress,  the  following  paragraph,  which  is  the  opening  portion  of  Pro- 
fessor Allbutt's  address,  has  seemed  to  me  to  deserve  quotation  here.  It  will  illustrate 
a  phase  of  the  subject  that  is  probably  utterly  unexpected  by  those  unfamiliar  with 
the  inner  history  of  medicine  in  our  time,  but  which  is  not  so  surprising  to  physicians 
who  know  the  jealousy  with  which  men  guard  their  specialties  from  what  they  con- 


CHURCH    AND    SURGERY  197 

In  conclusion,  we  may  say  that,  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
once  men  had  lifted  themselves  up  from  the  condition 
into  which  they  had  been  plunged  by  the  incursions  of 
the  barbarians,  there  was  nothing  like  the  neglect  of 
surgery  which  is  sometimes  said  to  have  existed.  Sur- 
gery had  its  normal  development,  and  reached  as  high  a 
stage  as  medicine  in  that  beginning  Renaissance,  which 
is  the  characteristic  feature  of  the  twelfth,  thirteenth, 
and  fourteenth  centuries.  The  traditions  of  a  low 
state  of  surgery  at  this  time  are  all  false  and  founded 
on  insufficient  knowledge  of  the  real  conditions,  which 
have  been  so  clearly  revealed  to  us  by  the  investigation 
of  original  documents  in  the  last  twenty-five  years. 
This  was,  in  fact,  one  of  the  greatest  periods  in  the  his- 
tory of  surgery  that  the  world  has  ever  known.  What- 
ever of  difficulty  in  development  surgery  encountered  was 
due  not  to  any  Church  opposition,  but  to  unfortunate 
conditions  that  arose  in  the  practice  of  medicine.  Pro- 
fessional jealousy  and  shortsightedness  was  the  main 
element  in  it.  Even  this,  however,  did  not  prevent  the 
very  wonderful  development  of  surgery  that  came  dur- 

sider  the  interference  of  others,  in  hospital  work  and  in  teaching,  though  this  exclu- 
siveness  often  proves  detrimental  both  to  the  breadth  of  development  of  the  student 
and  to  the  good  health  of  the  patient. 

"  It  was,  I  think,  in  the  year  1864,  when  I  was  a  novice  on  the  Honorary  Staff  of  the 
Leeds  General  Infirmary,  that  the  unsurgical  division  of  us  was  summoned  in  great 
solemnity  to  discuss  a  method  of  administration  of  drugs  by  means  of  a  needle.  This 
method  having  obtained  some  vogue,  it  behooved  those  who  practiced  '  pure '  medicine 
to  decide  whether  the  operation  were  consistent  with  the  traditions  of  purity.  For 
my  part,  I  answered  that  the  method  had  come  up  early,  if  not  originally,  in  St. 
George's  Hospital,  and  in  the  hands  of  a  house  physician— Dr.  C.  Hunter;  that  I  had 
accustomed  myself  already  to  the  practice  and  proposed  to  continue  it ;  moreover, 
that  I  had  recently  come  from  the  classes  of  Professor  Trousseau,  who,  when  his  cases 
demanded  such  treatment,  did  not  hesitate  himself  to  perform  paracentesis  of  the 
pleura,  or  even  incision  of  this  sac,  or  of  the  pericardium.  As,  for  lack  not  of  will 
but  of  skill  and  nerve,  I  did  not  intend  myself  to  perform  even  minor  operations,  my 
heresy,  as  one  in  thought  only,  was  indulgently  ignored,  and  we  were  set  free  to  ma- 
nipulate the  drug  needle  if  we  felt  disposed  to  this  humble  service." 


198  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

ing  the  Middle  Ages,  and  that  made  this  department  of 
human  knowledge  quite  as  progressive  and  successful 
as  any  other,  in  that  marvelous  period  when  the  univer- 
sities came  into  existence  in  the  form  which  they  have 
maintained  ever  since. 


PAPAL   PHYSICIANS. 

Most  of  what  historical  writers  generally,  who  follow 
the  old  traditions  of  the  medieval  eclipse  of  medicine, 
have  to  say  with  regard  to  the  supposed  Papal  opposition 
to  the  development  of  medical  science,  is  founded  on  the 
assumption  that  men  who  believed  in  miracles  and  in  the 
efficacy  of  prayer  for  the  relief  of  disease  could  not  pos- 
sibly be  interested  to  any  serious  degree  in  scientific 
medicine.  As  Dr.  White  says,  ' '  out  of  all  these  inquir- 
ies came  inevitably  that  question  whose  logical  answer 
was  especially  injurious  to  the  development  of  medical 
science :  why  should  men  seek  to  build  up  scientific 
medicine  and  surgery,  when  relics,  pilgrimages,  and 
sacred  observances,  according  to  an  overwhelming  mass 
of  concurrent  testimony,  have  cured  and  are  curing  hosts 
of  sick  folk  in  all  parts  of  Europe. "  He  goes  even 
farther  than  this,  however,  when  he  suggests  that  * '  it 
would  be  expecting  too  much  from  human  nature  to 
imagine  that  Pontiffs  who  derived  large  revenues  from 
the  sale  of  the  Agnus  Dei,  or  priests  who  derived  both 
wealth  and  honors  from  cures  wrought  at  shrines  under 
their  care,  or  lay  dignitaries  who  had  invested  heavily  in 
relics,  should  favor  the  development  of  any  science 
which  undermined  their  interests." 

On  the  strength  of  assumptions  such  as  these,  that 
"medieval  belief  in  miracles  of  healing  must  have 
checked  medical  science/'  and  that  therefore  it  did 
actually  prevent  the  development  of  scientific  medicine, 
statements  are  made  with  regard  to  the  history  of  medi- 

(199) 


200  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

cine  that  are  utterly  at  variance  with  the  plain  facts  of 
history.  Once  more,  as  in  the  case  of  the  supposed 
failure  of  surgery  to  develop  during  the  Middle  Ages,  it 
is  a  deduction  that  has  been  made  from  certain  supposed 
principles,  and  not  an  induction  from  the  actual  facts  as 
we  know  them.  Such  historians  would  be  the  first  to 
emphasize  the  narrowness  of  the  schoolmen  for  their 
supposed  dependence  on  deduction,  but  what  they  have 
to  say  on  medical  history  is  entirely  deductive,  and  un- 
fortunately from  premises  that  will  not  stand  in  the 
presence  of  the  story  of  the  wonderful  rise  and  develop- 
ment of  medical  science  and  medical  education,  mainly 
under  the  patronage  of  ecclesiastics,  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  argument  may  be  stated  formally  with  perfect 
fairness  as  follows  :  When  men  believe  in  miracles  they 
cannot  build  up  scientific  medicine  and  surgery;  but  men 
believed  in  miracles  in  the  Middle  Ages,  therefore  they 
did  not  build  up  scientific  medicine  and  surgery.  When 
stated  thus  baldly  in  formal  scholastic  form,  the  argu- 
ment loses  most  of  the  glamor 'that  has  been  thrown 
around  it.  This  is  one  of  the  advantages  of  the  old 
scholastic  method— it  strips  argument  to  its  naked  signif- 
icance. Logic  asserts  herself  and  rhetoric  loses  its 
force. 

With  regard  to  the  major  premise  that  when  men  be- 
lieve in  miracles  they  will  not  successfully  pursue  in- 
vestigations in  the  medical  science,  there  are  two  an- 
swers. One  of  these  concerns  the  actual  attitude  of 
mind  towards  scientific  medicine  of  men  who  believe  in 
miracles,  for  we  have  such  men  still  with  us,  and  have 
always  had  them  all  during  the  past  seven  centuries. 
The  other  portion  of  the  answer  concerns  what  men  who 
were  distinguished  scientific  investigators  thought  of 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  201 

miracles,  and  how  much  they  accomplished  for  the  medi- 
cal sciences  while  all  the  time  maintaining  their  belief 
in  the  possibility  of  miraculous  intervention  for  the 
cure  of  disease. 

Apparently  the  writers  who  insist  on  the  incompati- 
bility of  the  belief  in  miracles  with  devotion  to  scien- 
tific medicine  do  not  realize  that  the  greater  number  of 
thinking  physicians  during  the  last  seven  centuries,  and 
quite  down  to  our  own  day,  have  been  ready  to  confess 
their  belief  in  the  possibility  of  miraculous  healing,  yet 
have  tried  to  do  everything  in  their  power  to  relieve  suf- 
fering and  cure  human  ills  by  the  natural  means  at  their 
command.  Their  attitude  has  been  very  much  that  at- 
tributed to  Ignatius  of  Loyola,  who  said  to  the  members' 
of  his  order :  ''Do  everything  that  you  can  with  the  idea 
that  everything  depends  on  you,  and  then  hope  for  re- 
sults just  as  if  everything  depended  on  God."  There  is 
no  lack  of  logic  in  this  ;  and  the  physician  of  the  present 
day  who  realizes  his  impotency  in  the  presence  of  so 
many  of  the  serious  ailments  of  mankind  is  not  a  scoffer 
at  the  attitude  of  mind  that  looks  for  help  from  prayer ; 
but  if  he  is  sensible,  welcomes  the  placidity  of  mind  this 
will  give  his  patient,  even  if  he  does  not,  as  many  actu- 
ally do,  however,  believe  in  the  possible  interposition  of 
supernatural  forces. 

If  Prof.  White  knew  anything  about  the  lives  of  the 
men  whose  names  are  most  distinguished  in  the  history 
of  medicine  during  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth centuries,  we  would  have  heard  nothing  of  his 
almost  incomprehensible  negation  of  the  existence  of 
scientific  medicine,  during  centuries  when  so  many  men 
who  have  stamped  their  names  indelibly  on  the  history 
of  the  medical  sciences  were  doing  their  work  and  writ- 


202  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

ing.  If  he  had  taken  any  pains  to  learn  even  a  few  de- 
tails of  the  personal  relations  of  these  old-time  makers 
of  medicine  to  the  Popes,  we  would  have  heard  none  of 
this  utter  absurdity  of  Papal  opposition  to  medicine  or 
ecclesiastical  hampering  of  medical  science.  To  answer 
Prof.  White's  argument,  that  "it  would  be  expecting 
too  much  from  human  nature  to  imagine  that  Pontiffs 
should  favor  the  development  of  any  science  which  un- 
dermined their  interests/'  the  simple  story  of  the  men 
the  Popes  choose  as  their  own  medical  advisers,  and 
who  because  of  the  prestige  of  their  appointment  as 
Papal  Physicians  helped  to  raise  up  in  the  eyes  of  the 
people  the  dignity  of  the  medical  profession  which  they 
represented,  will  be  quite  enough.  It  will  also  serve  to 
show  how  different  is  history  founded  on  an  assumption 
from  history  founded  on  actual  facts. 

The  best,  most  easily  obtainable,  and  most  impressive 
data  for  the  inductive  method  of  reaching  the  truth  as 
regards. the  relation  of  the  Popes  to  medical  science  and 
(because  of  the  fact  that  physicians  were  the  scientists 
par  excellence  of  the  Middle  Ages)  to  all  science,  will 
be  found  in  a  brief  consideration  of  the  lives  of  the  men 
who  occupied  the  position  of  Papal  Physician  during 
the  last  seven  centuries.  I  do  not  think  that  this  group 
of  men  has  ever  been  treated  together  before  ;  at  least 
I  have  been  unable  to  find  any  work  on  the  subject. 
While  I  am  able  to  present  a  considerable  amount  of  in- 
teresting material  in  brief  form  with  regard  to  them,  I 
am  sure  that  there  are  many  of  them  whom  I  have 
omitted.  Practically  up  to  the  day  of  going  to  press  I 
have  been  finding  new  references  that  led  to  further 
precious  information  with  regard  to  this  most  wonderful 
group  of  men  in  medical  history.  It  will  be  well  under- 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  203 

stood,  then,  that  impressive  as  the  consideration  of  the 
work  and  character  of  the  men  whose  names  I  have 
found  must  be,  this  does  not  represent  all  the  truth  in 
the  matter,  but  can  be  supplemented  without  much  diffi- 
culty from  other  sources. 

If  the  Popes  had  been  interested  only  in  the  miraculous 
healing  of  disease,  and  had  wished  to  teach  the  lesson 
that  men  should  depend  solely  for  their  recovery  from 
serious  symptoms  and  ailments  of  all  kinds  on  prayers 
and  relics  and  pilgrimages,  then  they  would  either  have 
had  no  physicians  at  all  in  regular  attendance  on  them, 
or  at  least  their  physicians  would  not  have  been  selected 
from  among  the  men  who  were  doing  most  to  advance 
the  cause  of  practical  and  scientific  medicine  and  of 
medical  education.  The  very  opposite  of  this  is  the  case. 
The  Papal  physicians  were  as  a  rule  the  most  scientific 
medical  men  of  their  time.  This  is  not  a  pious  exaggera- 
tion, but  is  literally  true  for  seven  centuries  of  history, 
as  we  shall  see  presently.  The  wonder  of  it  is  that  there 
were  not  some  charlatans  among  them.  The  physicians 
whom  educated  people  select  are  not,  as  physicians  well 
know,  always  worthy  examples  of  progressive  medical 
men.  Literary  folk  particularly  seem  to  have  a  distinct  ten- 
dency to  want  to  be  different  from  other  people,  and 
their  physicians  are  often  the  veriest  theorizers.  A 
medical  friend  who  occasionally  quotes,  but  perverts  the 
old  line,  ' '  the  people  people  have  for  friends  are  often  very 
queer, "  says,  half  in  jest  of  course,  but  alas !  more  than 
half  in  earnest,  that  ''the  people  literary  folk  and  the 
clergy  have  for  doctors  are  the  queerest  ducks  (docs. ) 
of  all/' 

It  is  only  too  true  that  clergymen  are  especially  prone 
to  be  erratic  in  the  choice  of  their  medical  advisers  and 


204  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

lacking  in  a  critical  judgment  as  to  the  remedies  and 
methods  of  treatment  of  which  they  become  the  willing 
recipients,  and  occasionally  even  the  sponsors  as  regards 
other  people,  who  look  up  to  their  judgment  for  other 
reasons  with  confidence.  Prof.  Osier  once  said  that  the 
nearer  to  the  Council  of  Trent  the  clergyman,  the  nearer 
he  was  likely  to  be  to  truth  and  common  sense  in  medi- 
cal matters  ;  but  then  perhaps  all  would  not  agree  with 
him.  It  is  all  the  more  surprising  under  the  circum- 
stances, and  very  greatly  to  their  credit,  that  the  Popes 
should  have  had  as  their  physicians  a  list  of  men  whose 
names  are  the  brightest  on  the  roll  of  great  contributors 
to  medical  literature  and  some  of  the  most  distinguished 
among  the  great  discoverers  in  medical  science. 

This  fact  alone  constitutes  the  most  absolute  contradic- 
tion of  the  declarations  as  to  supposed  Church  opposition 
to  medicine  that  could  possibly  be  .given.  No  better 
means  of  encouraging,  fostering,  and  patronizing  medical 
science  could  be  thought  of  than  to  give  the  prestige  and 
the  emoluments  of  physician  to  the  head  of  the  Church 
to  important  makers  of  medicine  in  every  generation. 
The  physicians  to  the  rulers  of  Europe  have  not  always 
been  selected  with  as  good  judgment,  and,  as  I  have  al- 
ready said,  there  is  no  list  of  physicians  to  any  European 
Court,  nor  indeed  any  list  of  names  of  medical  men  con- 
nected together  by  any  bond  in  history— no  list,  for  in- 
stance, of  any  medical  faculty  of  a  university— which 
can  be  compared  for  prestige  in  scientific  medicine  with 
the  Papal  Physicians. 

Before  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  very 
little  is  known  of  the  medical  attendants  of  the  Popes. 
We  point  out  in  the  following  chapter  that  the  Papacy 
was  closely  in  touch  with  the  medical  school  at  Salernum. 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  205 

It  seems  not  unlikely,  and  indeed  there  are  some  tradi- 
tions to  that  effect,  that  in  cases  of  severe  illnesses  of 
the  Popes,  important  members  of  the  medical  faculty 
were  sometimes  summoned  from  the  South  of  Italy  to 
Rome.  The  relations  of  the  Popes  to  the  neighboring 
abbey  of  Monte  Cassino  might,  as  we  have  said,  suggest 
this.  We  have,  however,  very  few  details  in  this 
matter.  With  the  beginning  of  the  great  thirteenth 
century,  however,  the  records  of  human  achievement  in 
every  line  are  better  kept,  and  at  once  we  begin  to  know 
something  definite  about  Papal  Physicians.  The  first 
one  of  decided  prominence  was  Guy  or  Guido  of  Mont- 
pelier,  who  was  summoned  to  Rome  by  Pope  Innocent 
III.  in  order  that  he  might  re-establish  the  hospital  of 
the  Santo  Spirito  at  Rome,  in  accordance  with  what  were 
considered  to  be  the  latest  ideas  in  the  matter  of  hospital 
building  and  the  enlightened  care  of  the  sick.  How  well 
he  accomplished  this  work,  and  how  well  he  deserves  to 
head  the  glorious  roll  of  Papal  Physicians,  will  be  seen 
in  the  chapter  on  The  Popes  and  City  Hospitals. 

The  next  of  the  Papal  Physicians  of  whom  much  is 
known  in  the  history  of  medicine  was  Richard  the  Eng- 
lishman, usually  spoken  of  as  Ricardus  Anglicus.  He 
was  the  physician  to  the  famous  Pope  Gregory  IX. 
(1237-1241).  Richard,  who  was  born  in  England  not 
long  before  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  died 
shortly  after  the  middle  of  that  century.  For  a  time  he 
was  at  Paris,  and  accordingly  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as 
Ricardus  Parisiensis.  According  to  Gabriel  Naude  he 
was  at  Paris  after  the  death  of  his  patient,  Gregory  IX. , 
and  towards  the  end  of  his  life  retired  to  the  Abbey  of  St. 
Victor,  to  spend  his  last  days  in  recollection  and  prayer. 
In  this  he  anticipated  another  great  English  physician 


206  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

with  a  European  reputation— Linacre— who,  three  cen- 
turies later,  after  having  been  the  royal  physician  for 
many  years  to  King  Henry  VIII. ,  became  a  clergyman. 
It  is  interesting  to  realize  that,  early  in  history  as  Rich- 
ard's life  occurs,  some  works  attributed  to  him  contain 
definite  information  with  regard  to  anatomy.  Most  of 
this,  it  is  true,  is  taken  from  Hippocrates,  Galen,  and  the 
Arabs,  but  some  of  it  seems  to  be  the  result  of  his  own 
personal  experience,  on  the  living,  if  not  on  the  dead. 

After  Richard,  the  next  of  the  physicians  to  the  Popes 
who  has  an  important  place  in  the  history  of  medicine  is 
the  famous  Thaddeus  Alderotti,  who  lived  for  more  than 
eighty  years  during  the  thirteenth  century.  He  has  the 
added  interest  for  this  generation  of  having  been  a  self- 
made  man,  for  he  was  the  son  of  very  poor  parents  of 
the  lowest  rank.  Up  to  his  thirtieth  year  he  remained 
without  any  special  education.  He  made  his  living,  it  is 
said,  by  selling  candles.  Having  acquired  a  little  com- 
petency, at  the  age  of  thirty  he  began  with  great  zeal 
the  study  of  philosophy  and  of  medicine,  two  sciences 
which  in  the  old  days  were  supposed  to  go  very  well  to- 
gether, though,  unfortunately,  they  are  often  rigidly 
separated  from  each  other  in  later  times.  Fifteen  years 
after  he  began  the  study  of  medicine  we  hear  of  him  as 
a  medical  teacher,  and  then  ten  years  later  he  began  to 
be  famous  as  a  writer  on  all  sorts  of  medical  topics. 
He  became  the  physician  of  Pope  Honorius  IV.,  himself 
one  of  the  most  liberal  and  broadly  educated  of  men, 
and  as  the  result  of  the  confidence  awakened  by  his  oc- 
cupancy of  this  honorable  position,  he  secured  an  im- 
mense success  in  practice  and  made  an  enormous  for- 
tune. Alderotti 's  work  represents  what  is  best  in  medi- 
cine for  the  whole  of  the  thirteenth  century. 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  207 

A  curiously  interesting  episode  that  deserves  a  place  in 
the  history  of  Papal  Physicians  occurred  during  Alderot- 
ti's  life.  One  of  the  Popes  elected  to  fill  the  Papal  chair  had 
been  earlier  in  life  a  physician.  This  was  the  famous  Peter 
of  Spain,  though  he  was  really  a  Portuguese,  who,  under 
the  name  of  John  XXI. ,  occupied  the  Papal  throne  dur- 
ing the  years  1276-1277.  Peter  of  Spain  had  been  one 
of  the  most  distinguished  natural  scientists  of  this  inter- 
esting century.  Dr.  J.  B.  Petella,  in  an  article  published 
in  Janus  about  ten  years  ago,  entitled  A  Critical  and  His- 
torical Study  of  the  Knowledge  of  Ophthalmology  of  a 
Philosopher  Physician  who  became  Pope,  gives  an  excel- 
lent account  of  the  life  of  Pope  John  XXI.1 

Petella  does  not  hesitate  to  say  of  him  that  he  was 
' '  one  of  the  most  renowned  personages  of  Europe  dur- 
ing the  thirteenth  century,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
triple  evolution  of  his  extraordinary  mind,  which  caused 
him  to  make  his  mark  in  the  physical  sciences,  in  the  met- 
aphysical sciences,  and  in  the  religious  world.  In  him 
there  was  an  incarnation  of  the  savant  of  the  time,  and 
he  must  be  considered  the  most  perfect  encyclopedist  of 
the  Middle  Ages  in  their  first  renascence. " 

Anyone  who  reads  Dr.  Petella 's  account  of  this  book 
by  Pope  John  XXI.  will  be  surprised  at  how  much  was 
known  about  diseases  of  the  eye  at  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  For  instance,  hardening  of  the  eye 
is  spoken  of  as  a  very  serious  affection,  so  that  there 
seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  condition  now  known  as 
glaucoma  was  recognized  and  its  bad  prognosis  appreci- 
ated. His  account  of  the  external  anatomy  of  the  eye, 
eight  coats  of  which  he  describes,  beginning  with  the 

1  Janus,  Archives  International  es  pour  1'histoire  de  la  Medicine  et  pour  la  Geogra- 
phic Medicale,  paraissant  tous  les  deux  mois.    Amsterdam,  1897-1898. 


208  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

conjunctiva  and  ending  with  the  retina,  is  quite  complete. 
The  eye  is  said  to  have  eight  muscles,  the  levator  of 
the  upper  eyelid  and  the  sphincter  muscle  of  the  eye  be- 
ing counted  among  them.  The  other  muscles  are  pictur- 
esquely described  as  reins,  that  is,  guiding  ribbons  for 
the  eye.  Cataract  is  described  as  water  descending 
into  the  eye,  and  two  forms  of  it  are  distinguished— one 
traumatic,  due  to  external  causes,  and  the  other  due  to 
internal  causes.  Lachrimal  fistula  is  described  and  its 
causes  discussed.  Various  forms  of  blepharitis  are 
touched  upon.  Many  suggestions  are  made  for  the  treat- 
ment of  trichiasis.  That  a  man  who  was  as  distinguished 
in  medicine  as  Peter  of  Spain  should  have  been  elected 
Pope,  is  the  best  possible  proof  that  there  was  no  oppo- 
sition between  science  and  religion  during  the  thirteenth 
century. 

But  to  return  to  the  Papal  Physicians  in  our  original 
meaning  of  the  term.  Alderotti's  successor  as  physician 
to  the  Papal  Court  was  scarcely,  if  any,  less  distinguish- 
ed. This  was  Simon  Januensis,  the  medical  attendant 
to  Pope  Nicholas  IV.,  whose  pontificate  lasted  from 
1288-1292.  Simon  did  much  to  make  the  use  of  opium 
more  scientific  than  it  had  been,  and  he  established  defi- 
nite rules  for  its  administration.  Before  this  the  ano- 
dyne effects  of  the  drug  had  been  well  known,  but  the 
difficulty  had  been  to  regulate  its  dosage  properly  and 
prevent  the  use  of  too  large  quantities,  while  at  the  same 
time  securing  the  administration  of  sufficient  of  the  drug 
to  relieve  pain.  At  the  beginning  there  was  much  pre- 
judice with  regard  to  opium.  Indeed,  as  every  physi- 
cian knows,  this  prejudice  has  not  entirely  died  out  even 
in  our  own  day.  How  much  of  good,  then,  Simon  was 
able  to  accomplish  because  the  prestige  of  his  position  as 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  209 

Papal  Physician  helped  to  break  down  this  prejudice,  and 
how  much  human  suffering  he  saved  as  a  consequence, 
it  is  easy  to  understand. 

Simon  is  best  known  in  the  history  of  medical  science 
as  the  author  of  what  was  probably  the  first  important 
dictionary  of  medicine.  This  was  called  the  Synonyma 
Medicine  or  Clavis  Sanationis,  the  Key  of  Health.  Stein- 
schneider  has  declared  this  book  to  be  one  of  the  most 
important  works  in  the  field  of  Synonymies.  Julius  Pa- 
gel,  in  his  chapter  on  Therapeutics  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
in  Puschmann's  Handbook  of  the  History  of  Medicine, 
already  quoted,  says  that  this  Papal  Physician  succeed- 
ed in  solving  very  happily  the  problem  which  he  set  him- 
self, of  gathering  together  the  information  that  had  been 
collected  during  past  centuries  with  regard  to  medical 
words,  and  especially  those  relating  to  the  use  of  various 
remedial  measures.  The  industry  of  the  writer  may  be 
very  well  appreciated  from  the  fact  that  his  glossary 
contains  some  six  thousand  articles.  Its  place  in  the  his- 
tory of  science,  as  given  by  Meyer,  the  German  historian 
of  botany,  is  that  for  the  understanding  of  the  older 
words  in  natural  science,  no  better  aid  than  this  can  be 
found.  He  considers  it  the  best  work  of  its  kind  until 
Caspar  Bauhin's  similar  volume  came  to  replace  it,  but 
that  was  not  until  well  on  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
Simon  was  greatly  encouraged  in  this  work  by  Popes 
Nicholas  IV.  and  Boniface  VIII. ,  to  both  of  whom  he  was 
body  physician  and  at  the  same  time  an  intimate  friend. 

The  custom  of  having  for  medical  attendant  one  of  the 
leading  physicians  of  the  day,  if  not  actually  the  most 
prominent  medical  scientist  of  the  time,  which  had  ob- 
tained ''at  Rome  during  the  thirteenth  century,  was 
maintained  at  Avignon  during  the  three-quarters  of  a 


210  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

century  in  which  the  Papal  See  had  its  seat  there.  Just 
who  the  regular  medical  attendant  of  Clement  V.,  the 
first  of  the  Avignon  Popes,  was  is  not  very  sure.  When 
he  became  seriously  ill  toward  the  end  of  his  life,  how- 
ever, Arnold  of  Villanova,  one  of  the  professors  of 
physic  at  Paris  and  probably  the  most  distinguished 
living  physician  of  the  time,  was  summoned  in  consulta- 
tion, and  began  his  journey  down  to  Avignon.  This 
summons  attracted  widespread  attention,  which  was  still 
further  emphasized  by  the  fact  that  Arnold  of  Villanova 
died  on  the  journey.  It  is  not  difficult  to  appreciate  even 
at  this  distance  of  time  how  much  weight  the  summon- 
ing of  a  physician  from  a  long  distance  to  attend  His 
Holiness  would  have  on  the  minds  of  the  people,  and 
how  much  it  would  tend  to  call  their  attention  to  the 
important  medical  school  from  which  the  great  man 
came.  People  generally,  who  heard  the  facts,  would 
want  at  least  to  have  in  attendance  on  them,  if  possible, 
a  physician  who  had  been  graduated  at  the  school  from 
which  Arnold  of  Villanova  was  summoned  on  his  im- 
portant medical  mission.  How  much  this  would  mean 
for  the  encouragement  of  scientific  medicine  as  it  was 
developing  at  the  University  of  Paris  can  scarcely  be 
overestimated. 

The  distinct  tendency  of  the  Popes  to  keep  in  touch 
with  the  best  men  in  medicine  and  surgery  in  their  time 
is  well  illustrated  by  the  case  of  Guy  de  Chauliac.  This 
great  French  surgeon  and  professor  at  the  University  of 
Montpelier  is  hailed  by  the  modern  medical  world  as  the 
Father  of  Modern  Surgery.  There  is  no  doubt  at  all  of 
his  intensely  modern  character  as  a  teacher,  nor  of  his 
enterprise  as  a  progressive  surgeon.  Few  men  have 
done  more  for  advance  in  medicine,  and  his  name  is 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  211 

stamped  on  a  number  of  original  ideas  that  have  never 
been  eclipsed  in  surgery.  After  studying  anatomy  very 
faithfully,  especially  by  means  of  dissections,  in  Italy, 
where  he  tells  us  that  his  master  at  Bologna,  Bertrucci, 
made  a  larger  number  of  dissections  scarcely  more  than 
thirty  years  after  the  supposed  Papal  decree  of  prohibi- 
tion, he  returned  to  Montpelier  to  become  the  professor 
of  surgery  there,  and  introduced  the  Italian  methods  of 
investigation  into  the  famous  old  university. 

At  this  time  the  Popes  were  at  Avignon,  not  far 
distant  from  Montpelier.  From  them  Guy  received  every 
encouragement  in  his  scientific  work.  He  insisted  that 
no  one  could  practice  surgery  with  any  hope  of  success 
unless  he  devoted  himself  to  careful  dissection  of  the 
human  body.  If  we  were  to  believe  some  of  the  things 
that  have  been  said  with  regard  to  the  Popes  forbidding 
dissection,  this  should  have  been  enough  to  keep  the 
French  surgeon  from  the  favor  of  the  Popes,  but  it  did 
not.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  the  intimate  friend  and 
consultant  medical  attendant  of  two  of  the  Avignon 
Popes,  and  was  the  chamberlain  to  one  of  them.  The 
good  influence  of  Chauliac  on  the  minds  of  the  Popes  is 
reflected  in  their  interest  in  the  medical  department  of 
the  University  of  Montpelier.  About  this  time  Pope  Ur- 
ban VI.  founded  the  College  of  Twelve  Physicians  at 
Montpelier.  He  was  an  alumnus  of  the  university,  and 
had  been  appealed  to  to  enlarge  the  opportunities  of  his 
Alma  Mater.  He  did  so  in  the  manner  just  related. 

One  of  the  Papal  Physicians  of  the  Avignon  times  was 
unfortunate.  This  was  the  ill-fated  Cecco  di  Ascolo, 
who  was  distinguished  as  a  poet  and  a  philosopher  as 
well  as  a  physician.  But  for  his  sad  end,  one  might  be 
tempted  to  say,  that  he  had  so  many  irons  in  the  fire 


212  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

that  it  was  scarce  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  suffered  the 
fate  of  many  another  tender  of  too  many  irons,  and 
eventually  got  his  fingers  burnt.  He  was  body  physician 
of  Pope  John  XXII.  during  a  good  part  of  the  long  pon- 
tificate of  that  strenuous  old  man,  who  became  Pope 
when  over  seventy,  lived  to  be  ninety,  yet  accomplished 
important  work  in  every  year  of  his  career.  After  leav- 
ing Avignon  Cecco  went  to  Italy  and  became  the  Profes- 
sor of  Astrology  at  Bologna.  The  term  astrology  had 
none  of  the  unfortunate  or  derisory  signification  that  it 
has  at  the  present  time.  It  was,  as  the  etymology  of 
the  word  implies,  the  science  of  the  stars,  though  it  was 
cultivated  with  due  reference  to  the  influence  of  these 
heavenly  bodies  on  human  fate  and  human  constitutions. 
Hence  a  physician's  interest  in  it.  This  continued  to  be 
a  characteristic  of  astrology  down  to  the  time  of  Tycho- 
Brahe,  the  Danish  astronomer,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Cecco  and  another  distinguished 
physician  of  the  time,  Dino  de  Garbo,  became  involved 
in  a  public  controversy,  as  the  result  of  which  Cecco  was 
denounced  to  the  public  authorities  as  undermining  the 
basis  of  government  and  virtually  teaching  anarchy, 
though  it  was  called  heresy,  and  as  a  result  of  the  bitter 
feud  he  suffered  the  penalty  of  death  by  fire. 

The  last  of  the  Papal  Physicians  connected  with  the 
Pontifical  Court  at  Avignon  was  almost  as  illustrious  as 
any  of  his  predecessors.  He  was  the  well-known  Joan- 
nes de  Tornamira,  who  was  the  body  physician  to  Greg- 
ory XL  until  that  Pontiff  brought  the  Papal  Court  back 
to  Rome.  Then  Tornamira  became  the  chancellor  of  the 
University  of  Montpelier.  He  wrote  an  introduction  to 
the  study  of  medicine,  meant  for  the  use  of  students  and 
young  physicians,  called  a  Clarificatorium,  which,  accord- 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  213 

ing  to  Puschmann's  History  of  Medicine,  was  the  most 
used  text-book  of  medicine  during  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries.  Besides  this  he  wrote  a  long  and 
important  work  On  Fevers  and  the  Accidents  of  Fevers, 
in  which  he  sums  up  all  the  medical  knowledge  of  the 
time  on  these  subjects. 

That  the  policy  of  the  Popes  did  not  change  as  regards 
the  selection  of  their  physicians  on  their  return  from 
Avignon  to  Rome,  is  to  be  seen  from  the  physician  of 
the  Popes  whose  See  was  in  both  places.  This  was  the 
famous  Francis  of  Siena,  who  is  known  best  in  history 
as  the  intimate  friend  of  Petrarch,  and  who  was  physi- 
cian'to  Pope  Gregory  XL  and  to  his  successor,  Urban  VI. 
He  had  been  a  professor  of  medicine  at  the  University 
of  Pisa,  and  by  special  invitation  went  to  fill  the  same 
position  in  the  University  of  the  Papal  City,  and  became 
at  the  same  time  the  medical  adviser  of  the  Popes.  His 
influence  on  medicine  was  not  very  important,  but  he  oc- 
cupied a  very  prominent  position  among  the  learned  men 
of  the  time,  and  his  personal  prestige  did  much  to  add 
to  the  dignity  of  the  profession.  In  our  own  time,  the 
medical  men  who  have  been  best  known  and  whose  mem- 
bership in  the  profession  has  added  greatly  to  its  popu- 
lar estimation,  have  at  times  not  been  distinguished  for 
great  things  in  medicine.  Francis  of  Siena  was  such  a 
man,  and  the  fact  that  he  was  medical  adviser  to  the 
Popes  at  the  same  time  must  be  counted  as  an  important 
factor  in  the  evolution  of  medical  dignity. 

One  of  the  first  writers  on  medical  cases  who  did  not 
indulge  much  in  theory  was  Baverius  de  Baveriis,  of 
Imola,  who  died  about  1480,  and  who  was  the  physician 
to  Pope  Nicholas  V.  shortly  before  and  after  the  middle  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  In  the  light  of  the  fact  that  a  re- 


214  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

cent  Papal  physician,  Dr.  Lapponi,  has  written  a  book  on 
hypnotism  and  spiritism,  it  is  interesting  to  find  that  his 
predecessor  in  the  post  of  Papal  Physician  four  centuries 
and  a  half  ago,  discussed  the  differential  diagnosis  of 
hysteria,  catalepsy,  epilepsy  and  syncope.  He  also  dis- 
cusses certain  interesting  cases  of  vertigo  due  to  stomach 
trouble,  and  in  general  anticipates  very  unexpectedly 
neurotic  conditions  that  are  supposed  to  have  been  recog- 
nized in  medicine  much  later  than  his  time.  Perhaps  the 
most  startling  thing  to  be  found  in  his  works  is  his  rec- 
ommendation of  iron  for  chlorosis,  which  he  claimed 
to  have  treated  with  the  greatest  success  by  means  of 
this  remedy.  Of  course,  there  was  no  idea  at  the  time 
that  chlorosis  was  due  in  any  sense  to  a  lack  of  iron  in  the 
system,  and  its  value  as  a  therapeutic  agent  must  have 
come  entirely  from  empiric  considerations  ;  but  then 
most  of  our  advances  in  drug  therapeutics  have  come  by 
no  better  way. 

Another  of  the  distinguished  Papal  Physicians  of  the 
fifteenth  century  was  John  of  Vigo  (1460-1520) ,  who,  as 
Professor  Allbutt  notes,  was  attached  to  the  court  of  the 
fighting  Pontiff,  Julius  II.,  and  as  a  consequence  saw 
much  of  field  surgery.  His  text-book  of  surgery,  printed 
at  Rome  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  went 
through  an  enormous  number  of  editions.  No  standard 
surgical  treatise  had  appeared  since  that  of  Guy  de 
Chauliac,  and  Vigo's  continued  to  be  the  standard  for  the 
next  full  century.  lie  was  a  shrewd  and  skilful  as  well 
as  a  learned  physician.  Efis  surgical  acumen  deserves 
to  be  noted.  He  recognized  that  fracture  of  the  inner 
table  of  the  skull  might  take  place  without  that  of  the 
outer,  and  made  some  very  practical  remarks  with  re- 
gard to  gangrene  and  its  causes.  He  attributed  gan- 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  215 

grene  in  certain  cases  to  faulty  bandaging  in  fractures, 
and  discussed  its  origin  also  as  the  result  of  severe  cold. 
He  treated  syphilis  with  mercurial  inunctions,  a  practice 
still  followed  by  the  best  specialists  in  this  line.  His 
greatest  claim  to  fame,  however,  is  founded  on  the  fact 
that  he  was  the  first  to  write  a  surgical  treatise  on 
wounds  made  by  firearms. 

At  this  time,  during  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  Papal  Medical  School  begins  to-  assume  an 
importance  in  the  history  of  medicine  which  it  was  to 
continue  to  hold  for  the  next  two  centuries.  After  the 
refoundation  of  the  Sapienza  by  Pope  Alexander  VI. ,  and 
its  development  under  Pope  Leo  X.,  special  care  was 
taken  and  no  expense  spared  by  their  successors,  to  se- 
cure the  greatest  teachers  in  anatomy  in  the  world  for 
the  medical  department  of  the  Papal  University.  At  this 
time  all  the  great  physicians  were  distinguished  for  their 
attainments  in  anatomy,  somewhat  as  in  the  nineteenth 
century  great  physicians  obtained  their  prestige  by  orig- 
inal work  in  pathology.  The  situations  in  the  two  cen- 
turies had  much  more  in  common  than  the  casual  reader 
of  history  or  even  the  ordinary  student  of  medicine  would 
appreciate.  The  list  of  Papal  Physicians,  then,  becomes 
to  a  great  extent  the  roll  of  the  professors  of  anatomy 
at  the  Papal  University  Medical  School.  The  Popes  of 
this  period  were  wise  enough  in  their  generation  to  real- 
ize that  the  men  who  devoted  themselves  to  original  re- 
search in  increasing  the  knowledge  of  the  human  body, 
were  also  those  likely  to  know  most  about  the  diseases 
of  the  body  and  their  treatment.  These  scientific  anat- 
omists, with  the  chastening  knowledge  of  the  complexity 
of  the  human  body  before  them,  probably  made  less 
claims  to  power  to  cure  diseases  than  many  an  enthusi- 


216  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

astic  therapeutist  of  the  time,  who  thought,  as  have  rep- 
resentatives of  this  specialty  in  every  generation,  that 
he  has  many  infallible  remedies  for  the  cure  of  disease, 
though  subsequent  generations  have  not  agreed  with 
him. 

The  true  significance  of  the  lives  of  the  men  who  occu- 
pied the  post  of  Papal  Physician  after  this  time  will  be 
best  appreciated  from  our  treatment  of  them  in  the  chap- 
ter on  The  Papal  Medical  School.  It  will  be  sufficient 
here  simply  to  recall  the  names  of  the  distinguished  men 
who,  besides  being  professors  in  the  Papal  Medical 
School,  were  the  medical  advisers  of  the  Popes. 

The  first  and  most  important  of  the  great  Renaissance 
professors  of  anatomy  of  the  Roman  Medical  School  who 
were  also  Papal  Physicians  was  Columbus.  He  had  been 
Vesalius 's  assistant  at  Padua  and  later  his  successor. 
He  had  lectured  also  at  Bologna.  When  a  special  effort 
was  made  to  give  prestige  to  the  University  of  Pisa,  he 
was  tempted  by  particularly  liberal  offers  to  become  the 
professor  of  anatomy  in  that  city.  It  was  from  here,  by 
still  more  generous  patronage,  that  the  Popes  obtained 
him  for  their  medical  school.  On  treating  of  the  Papal 
Medical  School,  we  shall  have  more  to  say  of  him  and  his 
successor  in  the  professorship  of  anatomy  and  medicine 
as  well  as  in  the  post  of  Papal  Physician,  who  was  the 
third  of  the  first  anatomists  of  the  time— Eustachius. 
He  with  Columbus  and  Vesalius  constitute  the  trinity  of 
great  original  investigators  in  anatomy  about  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  is  extremely  interesting, 
with  the  traditions  that  exist  in  the  matter,  to  find  that 
the  Popes  secured  two  of  these  great  anatomists  for 
their  personal  physicians  as  well  as  for  their  medical 
school.  The  third  one,  Vesalius,  became  the  body  phy- 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  217 

sician  first  to  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  and  then  to  his  son 
Philip  II. ,  whom  many  would  declare  to  be  as  Catholic  as 
the  Popes  themselves  in  religious  tendencies. 

After  Eustachius  came  Varolius,  whose  name  is  en- 
graved in  the  history  of  medicine  because  the  Pons  Va- 
rolii  or  bridge  of  Varolius,  an  important  structure  in  the 
brain  now  often  simply  called  the  pons,  was  named  after 
him.  To  Varolius  we  owe  one  of  the  earliest  detailed 
descriptions  of  the  anatomy  of  the  brain.  He  was  the 
Papal  Physician  to  Gregory  XIII. ,  who  will  be  remem- 
bered as  the  Pope  under  whom  the  reform  of  the  calendar 
was  made  by  the  great  Jesuit  mathematician  and  astron- 
omer, Father  Clavius.  Pope  Gregory's  enlightened  pat- 
ronage of  medicine  in  the  person  of  Varolius  will  be  bet- 
ter appreciated  if  we  add  that  he  was  chosen  as  Papal 
Physician  when  he  was  not  yet  thirty  years  of  age, 
though  he  had  already  given  abundant  evidence  of  his 
talent  for  original  investigation  in  anatomy.  He  died  at 
the  early  age  of  thirty-two,  but  not  until  after  he  had 
accomplished  a  life's  work  sufficient  to  give  him  an  en- 
during place  in  the  history  of  anatomy.  After  Varolius 
as  Papal  Physician  came  Piccolomini  and  then  Caesalpi- 
nus,  whom  the  Italians  hail  as  the  discoverer  of  the  cir- 
culation of  the  blood  before  Harvey,  and  of  whom  we 
shall  have  much  to  say  in  the  next  chapter.  Piccolomini 
was  not  as  great  an  original  thinker  and  worker  as  many 
of  his  predecessors  and  successors,  but  he  was  a  man 
whose  prestige  in  medicine  was  scarcely  less  than  theirs. 

That  this  same  liberal  patronage  of  distinguished  phy- 
sicians was  continued  in  the  next  century  may  be  real- 
ized from  the  fact  that  Malpighi,  the  great  founder  of 
comparative  anatomy,  became  one  of  the  Papal  Physi- 
cians. His  intimate  friend,  Borelli,  to  whom  we  owe  the 


218  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

introduction  of  physics  into  medicine,  had  spent  some 
years  in  Rome,  where,  having  been  robbed  by  his  ser- 
vants, with  the  consent  of  the  Pope  he  took  up  his  abode 
with  the  Society  of  the  Pious  Schools  of  San  Pantaleone. 
Here  he  finished  his  important  work  De  Motu  Animal- 
ium,  in  which  the  principles  of  mechanics  were  first  defi- 
nitely introduced  into  anatomy  and  physiology.  The 
preface  to  this  book  was  written  by  an  ecclesiastic,  who 
praises  the  piety  of  Borelli  during  his  stay  in  Rome  and 
chronicles  his  encouragement  by  the  Popes  in  his  medi- 
cal work.  Malpighi  was  succeeded  as  Papal  Physician 
by  Tozzi,  who  is  famous  for  his  commentaries  on  the 
ancients  rather  than  for  original  observation,  but  who 
was  looked  upon  in  his  time  as  one  of  the  most  promi- 
nent physicians  in  Italy,  and  at  this  period  that  meant 
one  of  the  most  prominent  physicians  in  the  world.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  next  century,  the  eighteenth,  Lan- 
cisi,  by  many  considered  the  Father  of  Modern  Clinical 
Medicine,  became  the  Papal  Physician. 

Among  the  consultant  physicians  to  the  Popes  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  though  he  never  occupied  the  post 
of  regular  medical  attendant,  was  Morgagni.  His  ad- 
vice was  often  sought  by  a  succession  of  Popes  not  only 
with  regard  to  their  personal  health,  but  also  with  regard 
to  the  teaching  of  medicine  and  other  questions  of  like 
nature.  Virchow  has  called  Morgagni  the  Father  of 
Modern  Pathology,  because  he  was  the  first  to  point  out, 
that  for  a  knowledge  of  disease  it  is  quite  as  important 
to  know  where  the  disease  has  been  as  to  try  to  learn 
what  it  has  been.  All  of  the  Popes,  five  in  number,  of 
the  latter  part  of  Morgagni 's  life  were  on  terms  of  inti- 
macy with  him.  Pope  Benedict  XIV. ,  one  of  the  very 
great  Popes  of  the  century,  a  native  of  Bologna,  was 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  219 

an  intimate  friend  of  Morgagni.  His  scarcely  less  fa- 
mous successor,  Pope  Clement  XIII. ,  had  known  Mor- 
gagni before  his  elevation  to  the  Papacy,  and  after  his 
election  he  wrote  assuring  Morgagni  of  his  continued 
esteem  and  friendship,  and  asks  him  to  consider  the 
Papal  palace  always  open  to  him  on  his  visits  to  Rome. 
In  an  extant  letter  Clement  praises  his  wisdom,  his  cul- 
ture, his  courtesy,  his  piety  toward  God,  his  charity  to- 
ward men,  and  holds  him  up  as  an  example  to  all 
others  for  the  special  reason  that,  notwithstanding  all 
his  qualities,  he  had  not  aroused  the  enmity  or  envy  of 
those  around  him,  thus  showing  what  a  depth  of  hu- 
manity there  was  in  him  in  addition  to  his  scientific 
attainments. 

At  this  time  Morgagni  was  looked  upon  by  all  the 
medical  world  as  probably  the  greatest  of  living  medical 
scientists.  Visitors  who  came  to  Italy  who  were  at  all 
interested  in  science,  always  considered  that  their  jour- 
ney had  not  been  quite  complete  unless  they  had  had  an 
opportunity  of  meeting  Morgagni.  He  had  more  per- 
sonal friends  among  the  scientists  of  all  the  countries  of 
Europe  than  any  other  man  of  his  time.  The  fact  that 
this  leader  in  science  should  be  at  the  same  time  a  great 
personal  friend  of  the  Popes  of  his  time  is  the  best  pos- 
sible evidence  of  the  more  than  amicable  relations  which 
existed  between  the  Church  and  medicine  during  this 
century.  Morgagni's  life  of  nearly  ninety  years  indeed, 
covers  most  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  is  of  itself, 
without  more  ado,  an  absolute  proof  that  there  was  not 
only  no  friction  between  religion  and  medicine,  but  shows 
on  the  contrary  that  medical  science  encountered  patron- 
age and  encouragement  as  far  as  ecclesiastics  were  con- 
cerned, while  success  in  it  brought  honor  and  emolument. 


220  THE    POPES  AND    SCIENCE 

Morgagni's  personal  relations  to  the  Church  are  best 
brought  out  by  the  fact  that,  of  his  fifteen  children,  ten 
of  whom  lived  to  adult  life,  eight  daughters  became 
members  of  religious  orders  and  one  of  his  two  surviving 
sons  became  a  Jesuit.  The  great  physician  was  very 
proud  and  very  glad  that  his  children  should  have  chosen 
what  he  did  not  hesitate  to  call  the  better  part. 

After  Morgagni's  time,  the  days  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution bring  a  cloud  over  the  Papacy.  There  were 
political  disturbances  in  Italy  and  the  Popes  were  shorn 
of  their  temporal  power.  As  a  consequence  their  medi- 
cal school  loses  in  prestige  and  finally  disappears.  The 
Papal  Physicians  after  this,  while  distinguished  among 
their  fellow  members  of  the  Roman  medical  profession, 
were  no  longer  the  world-known  discoverers  in  medicine 
that  had  so  often  been  the  case  before.  So  long  as  the 
Popes  had  the  power  and  possessed  the  means,  they 
used  both  to  encourage  medicine  in  every  way,  as  the 
list  of  Papal  Physicians  shows  better  than  anything  else, 
and  a  study  of  this  chapter  of  their  history  will  undo  all 
the  false  assertions  with  regard  to  the  supposed  opposi- 
tion between  the  Church  and  science. 

We  have  already  said,  and  it  seems  to  deserve  repe- 
tition here,  that  during  most  of  these  centuries  in  which 
the  Papal  Physicians  were  among  the  most  distinguished 
discoverers  in  medicine,  the  term  medicine  included 
within  itself  most  of  what  we  now  know  as  physical 
science.  Botany  was  studied  as  a  branch  of  medicine, 
and  as  we  have  seen,  one  of  the  Papal  Physicians, 
Simon  Januensis,  compiled  a  dictionary  that  a  modern 
German  Historian  of  Botany  finds  excellent.  Astrology, 
under  which  term  astronomy  was  included,  was  studied 
for  the  sake  of  the  supposed  influence  of  the  stars  on 


PAPAL    PHYSICIANS  221 

men's  constitutions.— Chemistry  was  a  branch  of  medi- 
cal study.  Mineralogy  was  considered  a  science  allied 
to  medicine,  and  the  use  of  antimony  and  other  metals 
in  medicine  originated  with  physicians  trying  to  extend 
the  domain  of  knowledge  to  minerals.  Comparative 
anatomy  was  founded  by  a  Papal  Physician.  These 
were  the  principal  physical  sciences.  To  talk  of  oppo- 
sition between  science  and  religion,  then,  with  the  most 
distinguished  scientists  of  these  centuries  in  friendly 
personal  and  official  relations  with  the  Popes,  is  to 
indulge  in  one  of  those  absurdities  common  enough 
among  those  who  must  find  matter  for  their  condemnation 
of  the  Popes  and  the  Church,  but  that  every  advance  in 
modern  history  has  pushed  farther  back  into  the  rubbish 
chamber  of  outlived  traditions. 


THE   POPES  AND    MEDICAL  EDUCATION   AND 
THE  PAPAL  MEDICAL  SCHOOL. 

After  the  story  of  the  Papal  Physicians,  the  most  im- 
portant phase  of  the  relations  of  the  Popes  to  the  med- 
ical sciences  is  to  be  found  in  the  story  of  the  Papal 
Medical  School.  While  it  seems  to  be  generally  ignored 
by  those  who  are  not  especially  familiar  with  the  history 
of  medical  education,  a  medical  school  existed  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Papal  University  at  Rome  during  many 
centuries— according  to  excellent  authorities,  from  the 
beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century—  and  this  medical 
school  had,  as  we  have  said  elsewhere,  during  nearly 
two  centuries  some  of  the  most  distinguished  professors 
of  medicine  in  its  ranks,  and  boasts  among  its  faculty 
some  of  the  greatest  discoverers  in  the  medical  sciences, 
and  especially  in  anatomy.  For  these  two  centuries  it 
had  but  two  important  rivals,  Padua  and  Bologna.  Both 
of  these  were  in  Italy,  and  one,  that  of  the  University  of 
Bologna,  was  in  a  Papal  city,  that  is,  was  under  the 
political  dominion  of  the  Popes.  The  best  medical 
teaching,  then,  was  to  be  found  in  the  Papal  States  and 
under  conditions  such,  that  if  there  had  been  the  slight- 
est opposition,  or  indeed  anything  but  the  most  cordial 
encouragement  for  medical  study,  the  medical  schools  of 
Rome  and  Bologna  would  surely  have  languished  instead 
of  flourishing  beyond  all  others. 

Just  about  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century 

(222) 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  223 

Pope  Boniface  VIII. ,  who  was  himself  one  of  the  dis- 
tinguished scholars  of  his  time,  determined  that,  besides 
the  university  of  the  Papal  Court,  which  had  existed  for 
nearly  a  century  at  Rome,  but  which  was  mainly  occu- 
pied with  philosophy  and  theology  and  mainly  attended 
by  ecclesiastics,  there  should  also  be  a  university  of  the 
City  of  Rome  for  the  people  of  his  capital.  This  deter- 
mination was  reached  only  a  short  time  before  the  cul- 
mination of  the  difficulty  between  Pope  Boniface  and 
the  King  of  France,  which  eventually  resulted  in  what 
has  been  called  the  outrage  of  Anagni  and  the  subse- 
quent death  of  the  Pope  within  a  short  time.  It  has 
usually  been  thought,  then,  that  in  spite  of  certain  ex- 
tant Papal  documents  creating  the  University  of  the 
City  of  Rome,  this  university  had  not  been  organized 
before  Pope  Boniface's  death,  and  as  his  successor  did 
not  take  his  seat  at  Rome,  but  at  Avignon,  it  has  usually 
been  assumed  that  the  University  of  the  City  came  into 
existence  at  most  only  in  an  abortive  form.  Denifle, 
whose  History  of  the  Universities  of  the  Middle  Ages 
is  looked  upon  as  the  best  authority  in  such  matters, 
however,  insists  that  a  complete  university  of  the  City 
of  Rome  did  come  into  existence  as  a  result  of  Boniface's 
decree. 

All  during  the  time  when  the  Popes  were  at  Avignon 
this  university  continued  to  exist,  and  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  at  one  time,  as  a  consequence  of  a  great 
earthquake  followed  by  a  pestilence,  and  then  serious 
political  troubles  because  of  the  absence  of  the  Popes, 
Rome  had  only  something  less  than  ten  thousand  inhabi- 
tants, the  university  continued  its  work.  Denifle  calls 
attention  to  the  fact  that  there  are  letters  of  Pope  John 
XXII.  which  show  that  he  paid  out  of  the  Papal  revenues 


224  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

the  salary  of  a  teacher  of  physic  at  the  University  of  the 
City  of  Rome  while  the  Papal  Court  was  at  Avignon. 
It  is  rather  interesting  to  find  the  names  of  the  two 
Popes,  Boniface  VIII.  and  John  XXII. ,  whose  Papal  de- 
crees are  supposed  to  have  prevented  the  study  of 
anatomy  and  chemistry,  thus  cropping  up  on  unques- 
tionable authority  as  the  founder  and  the  patron  of 
medical  teaching  in  the  City  of  Rome.  Pope  Boniface 
VIII.  is  now  generally  credited  with  having  been  the 
founder  of  the  Sapienza,  the  medical  school  of  which, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  to  de- 
velop into  one  of  the  most  important  schools  of  its  kind 
in  Europe,  and  to  have  on  its  faculty  list  the  greatest 
teachers  of  their  time,  who  had  been  tempted  to  come 
to  Rome  because  the  Popes  wished  to  enhance  the  pres- 
tige of  the  medical  school  of  their  capital. 

While  it  may  be  a  surprise  for  those  who  have  been 
accustomed  to  think  of  the  Popes  as  inalterably  opposed 
to  all  science,  and  especially  to  medical  science,  thus  to 
find  them  encouraging  and  fostering  medical  teaching, 
it  will  only  be  what  would  naturally  be  expected  by 
those  who  know  anything  of  the  real  history  of  medi- 
cine in  the  earlier  Middle  Ages.  There  is  no  doubt  at 
all,  that  during  the  so-called  "dark  ages,"  that  is,  when 
the  invasion  of  the  barbarians  had  put  out  the  lights  of 
the  older  civilizations,  it  was  mainly  ecclesiastics  who 
preserved  whatever  traditions  there  were  of  the  old 
medical  learning  and  carried  on  whatever  serious  teach- 
ing of  medicine,  in  the  sense  of  medical  science,  that 
existed  during  this  time.  The  monks  were  the  most 
prominent  in  this;  and  the  Benedictines,  after  their 
foundation  in  the  sixth  century,  added  to  their  duties  of 
caring  for  the  other  temporal  needs  of  the  poor,  who  so 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  225 

often  appealed  to  them,  that  of  helping  them  as  far  as 
they  could  in  any  bodily  ailments  with  which  they  might 
be  afflicted.  There  are  even  definite  traditions  that 
a  certain  amount  of  training  in  medicine,  or  at  least  in 
the  care  of  the  sick,  was  one  of  the  features  of  the  Bene- 
dictine monasteries. 

Dr.  Payne  in  his  article  on  the  History  of  Medicine  in 
the  Encyclopaedia  Brittanica  said :  "In  civil  history 
there  is  no  real  break.  A  continuous  thread  of  learning 
and  practice  must  have  connected  the  last  period  of 
Roman  medicine  with  the  dawn  of  science  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  But  the  intellectual  thread  is  naturally  traced 
with  greater  difficulty  than  that  which  is  the  theme  of 
civil  history  ;  and  in  periods  such  as  that  from  the  fifth 
to  the  tenth  century  in  Europe,  it  is  almost  lost.  The 
chief  homes  of  medical  as  of  other  learning  in  these  dis- 
turbed times  were  the  monasteries.  Though  the  science 
was  certainly  not  advanced  by  their  labors,  it  was  saved 
from  total  oblivion,  and  many  ]?rcient  medical  works 
were  preserved  in  Latin  or  the  vernacular  versions.  It 
was  among  the  Benedictines  that  the  monastic  studies 
of  medicine  first  received  a  new  direction  and  aimed  at 
a  higher  standard.  The  study  of  Hippocrates,  Galen, 
and  other  classics  was  recommended  by  Cassiodorus 
(sixth  century),  and  in  the  original  mother  abbey  of 
Monte  Cassino  medicine  was  studied,  though  there  was 
probably  not  what  could  be  called  a  medical  school  there ; 
nor  had  this  foundation  any  connection  (as  has  been 
supposed)  with  the  famous  school  of  Salerno/' 

A  review  of  some  of  the  interesting  features  of  the 
early  history  of  medical  education  will  serve  to  show 
that,  not  only  was  there  no  ecclesiastical  interference 
with  the  new  developing  science,  but,  on  the  contrary, 


226  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

without  the  personal  aid  and  the  intelligent  patronage 
of  ecclesiastics  of  all  degree,  and  especially  of  arch- 
bishops and  Popes,  the  development  of  medical  teaching 
that  took  place  at  Salerno  would  probably  not  have  had 
the  significance  in  history  that  it  now  enjoys.  While 
there  was  no  institutional  connection  between  the  medi- 
cal school  of  Salerno  and  the  Benedictine  Monastery  at 
Monte  Cassino,  it  is  known  that  at  the  end  of  the  seventh 
century  there  was  a  branch  Benedictine  monastery  at 
Salerno,  and  some  of  the  prelates  and  higher  clergy  oc- 
cupied posts  as  teachers  in  the  school,  and  even  became 
distinguished  for  medical  acquirements. 

Though  the  Salernitan  medical  school  proper  was  a 
secular  institution,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Benedic- 
tines had  great  influence  in  it  and  had  fostered  its  forma- 
tion. How  close  the  monks  of  Monte  Cassino  were  allied 
to  the  Popes,  everyone  knows.  The  Benedictines  con- 
sidered themselves  the  social  wards  of  the  Papacy,  and 
a  number  of  the  Abbot  0  of  Monte  Cassino,  or  monks  be- 
longing to  the  community,  and  of  men  who  had  been 
educated  in  the  monastery,  had  been  raised  to  the 
Papacy  during  the  Middle  Ages.  The  origin  of  modern 
medical  teaching  is  thus  closely  associated  not  only  with 
the  Benedictines,  but  through  them  with  the  Popes, 
without  whose  encouragement  and  sanction  the  work 
would  not  have  flourished  as  it  did. 

In  advance  of  the  formal  establishment  of  medical 
schools,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  two  topes 
were  distinguished  before  their  elevation  to  the  Papacy 
for  their  attainments  in  all  the  sciences,  and  especially 
in  medicine,  one  of  whom  actually  founded  an  important 
school  of  thought  in  medicine,  while  the  other  was  a 
professor  at  Salerno.  The  first  of  these  is  the  famous 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  227 

Gerbert,  who,  under  the  name  of  Sylvester  II. ,  was  Pope 
at  the  end  of  the  millenium  and  carried  Christianity  over 
what  was  supposed  to  be  the  perilous  period  of  the  com- 
pletion of  the  first  thousand  years,  when  the  end  of  the 
world  was  so  universally  looked  for.  Gerbert  was  fa- 
mous for  his  attainments  in  every  branch  of  science,  and 
indeed  so  many  wonderful  traditions  have  collected 
around  his  name  in  this  matter  that  one  hesitates  to  ac- 
cept most  of  them.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt,  how- 
ever, that  he  was  the  beloved  master  of  Fulbert  of 
Chartres,  who  did  much  for  medicine  in  France  at  the 
beginning  of  the  eleventh  century  and  who  was  the 
founder  of  the  so-called  school  of  Chartres  and  himself 
the  teacher  of  John  of  Chartres,  who  became  the  physi- 
cian to  King  Henry  L,  of  France,  and  of  Peter  of  Char- 
tres and  Hildier  and  Goisbert. 

Before  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century  Pope  Victor 
III.,  who  had  been  the  Abbot  of  Monte  Cassino,  was 
elected  Pope  much  against  his  will.  He  occupied  the 
Papal  throne  only  for  about  a  year  and  a  half.  He  had 
been  especially  recommended  by  Pope  Gregory  VII.,  the 
famous  Hildebrand,  as  a  very  suitable  successor.  Desi- 
derius,  as  he  was  called  before  becoming  Pope,  was  one 
of  the  best  scholars  of  his  time,  and  had  taught  for  some 
years  with  great  distinction  at  Salerno.  It  is  not  known 
absolutely  that  he  taught  medicine,  but,  as  the  univer- 
sity of  Salerno  is  usually  considered  not  to  have  been 
founded  until  the  middle  of  the  next  century,  and  as  be- 
fore that  time  the  main  teaching  faculty  was  that  of  the 
medical  school  and  all  other  teaching  was  subordinated 
to  it,  Desiderius  must  surely  be  considered  as  a  teacher 
at  least  of  medical  students.  At  that  time  a  physician 
was  expected  to  know  something  more  than  merely  his 


228  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

profession.  Mathematics  and  philosophy  were  the  two 
favorite  subjects  to  which,  besides  medicine,  they  de- 
voted themselves.  The  presence  of  the  future  Pope  at 
Salerno  is,  moreover,  the  best  possible  index  of  the  sym- 
pathy between  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  and  the 
medical  school. 

Besides  there  are  definite  records  of  the  friendship 
which  existed  between  Alphanus,  Archbishop  of  Salerno, 
and  Desiderius,  while  they  were  both  members  of  the 
Benedictine  Community  of  Monte  Cassino.  Alphanus 
subsequently  taught  medicine  at  Salerno,  and  some  of 
his  writings  on  medicine  have  been  preserved  for  us. 
He  was  the  author  of  a  work  bearing  the  title  De  Quat- 
uor  Elementis  Corpcrris  Humani,  a  treatise  on  the  four 
elements  of  the  human  body,  which  is  a  compendium  of 
most  of  the  knowledge  of  anatomy  and  physiology  of 
the  time,  though  it  also  contains  much  more  than  the  in- 
formation with  regard  to  the  merely  physical  side  of 
man's  being.  The  fact  that  Alphanus  should  have  been 
promoted  from  the  professorship  in  the  medical  faculty 
to  the  Archbishopric  of  Salerno  is  only  another  proof  of 
the  entire  sympathy  which  existed  between  the  Church 
and  the  professors  of  medical  science  at  that  time. 

During  the  thirteenth  century  universities  were 
founded  in  some  twenty  important  cities  in  Europe,  and 
in  connection  with  most  of  them  a  medical  school  was 
established.  These  educational  institutions  were  the  re- 
sult of  the  initiative  of  ecclesiastics ;  their  officials  all 
belonged  to  the  clerical  body,  most  of  their  students 
were  considered  as  clerics— and  indeed  this  was  the  one 
way  to  secure  them  against  the  calls  for  military  service 
which  would  otherwise  have  disturbed  the  enthusiasm 
for  study— and  the  Popes  were  considered  the  supreme 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  229 

authority  over  all  the  universities.  In  spite  of  this  thor- 
oughly ecclesiastical  character  of  the  universities  aTid 
educational  institutions,  there  is  not  a  hint  of  interference 
with  the  teaching  of  medical  science  and  abundant  evi- 
dence of  its  encouragement.  Indeed,  for  anyone  who 
knows  the  story  of  the  universities  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  it  is  practically  impossible  to  understand  how 
there  could  have  arisen  any  tradition  of  ecclesiastical 
opposition  to  education  in  any  form,  and  there  is  not  a 
trace  of  foundation  for  the  stories  with  regard  to  eccle- 
siastical intolerance  of  science,  which  are  supposed  to 
be  supported  by  certain  Papal  decrees. 

The  best  possible  demonstration  of  the  maintenance  of 
the  most  amicable  relations  between  churchmen  and 
physicians  during  the  century  in  which  these  decrees 
were  issued  is  also  the  most  interesting  fact  in  the  his- 
tory of  medicine  during  the  thirteenth  century.  It  is 
not  generally  known  that  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
physicians  of  the  thirteenth  century,  one  who  wrote  a 
book  on  the  special  subject  of  eye  diseases  that  is  still 
a  classic,  afterwards  became  Pope  under  the  name  of 
John.  He  is  variously  known  as  John  XIX.,  John  XX., 
or  John  XXL,  according  as  certain  occupants  of  the 
Papal  throne  are  considered  to  be  of  authority  or  not. 
He  was  educated  at  Paris,  and  probably  spent  some 
time  at  Montpelier.  Under  the  name  of  Peter  of  Spain, 
though  he  was  what  we  should  now  call  a  Portuguese, 
he  subsequently  taught  physic .  at  the  University  of 
Sienna.  Here  he  wrote  the  famous  little  work  on  the 
Diseases  of  the  Eye,  which  was  reviewed  by  Dr.  Petella, 
physician-in-chief  of  the  Royal  Italian  Marine,  in  Janus, 
the  International  Archives  for  the  History  of  Medicine 
and  for  Medical  Geography  in  1898.  Petella  does  not 


230  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

hesitate  to  proclaim  him  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  his 
time.  Daunou,  one  of  the  continuators  of  the  Benedic- 
tines* literary  history  of  France,1  says  that  this  Peter  of 
Spain  was  one  of  the  most  notable  persons  in  Europe  in 
his  generation. 

Pope  John  XXL,  before  his  accession  to  the  Papacy, 
had  certainly  accomplished  remarkable  work  in  medicine, 
and  of  a  kind  that  makes  his  writings  of  great  interest 
even  at  the  present  day.  There  is  scarcely  an  important 
pathological  condition  of  the  eye  which  does  not  receive 
some  consideration  in  this  little  book,  and  it  is  a  constant 
source  of  surprise  in  reading  it  to  find,  with  their  limited 
knowledge  and  lack  of  instruments,  what  good  diagnos- 
ticians the  ophthalmologists  of  the  thirteenth  century 
were.  Cataract  is  described,  for  instance,  under  the 
name  of  "water  that  descends  into  the  eye,"  and  a 
distinction  is  made  between  cataract  from  internal  and 
external  causes.  Hardening  of  the  eye  is  mentioned 
and  is  declared  to  be  very  serious  in  its  effects.  There 
seems  no  doubt  that  this  was  glaucoma.  Conditions  of 
the  lids,  particularly,  were  differentiated  and  treated  by 
rational  measures,  some  of  them  quite  modern  in  sub- 
stance. A  curious  anticipation  of  modern  therapeu- 
tics is  the  frequent  recommendation  of  extracts  of  the 
livers  of  various  fishes  for  external  and  internal  use, 
that  is  a  reminder  of  the  present  employment  of  cod- 
liver  oil.  The  book  is  acknowledged  to  be  a  classic  in 
medicine.  The  fact  that  its  author  should  have  become 
Pope  later,  is  the  best  proof  that  instead  of  opposition 
there  was  the  greatest  sympathy  between  medicine  and 
ecclesiasticism  in  his  time. 

1  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France,  Vol.  XVI.  This  is  the  famous  work  begrun  by 
the  Benedictines  of  St.  Maur. 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  231 

With  these  thoroughly  amicable  relations  between  the 
Church  and  the  medical  schools  during  the  thirteenth 
and  preceeding  centuries,  it  will  not  be  so  much  of  a 
surprise  as  it  might  otherwise  be,  to  learn  of  the  foun- 
dation of  the  Medical  School  of  Rome  and  of  the  con- 
tinuation of  Papal  patronage  of  it  even  while  the  Popes 
were  absent  at  Avignon.  University  records  do  not  say 
much  about  it  during  the  next  two  centuries.  With  the 
coming  of  the  Renaissance,  however,  and  the  entrance 
of  a  new  spirit  into  education,  the  Popes  also  were 
touched  by  the  educational  time-spirit,  and  there  came 
a  rejuvenation  of  the  University  of  the  City,  which  now 
acquired  a  new  name,  that  of  the  Sapienza,  and  became 
the  home  of  some  of  the  most  distinguished  teaching  in 
Europe  in  every  department.  Early  in  the  sixteenth 
century  the  medical  department  of  the  Sapienza,  or 
Papal  University  at  Rome,  became  one  of  the  most  note- 
worthy institutions  of  Europe  because  of  the  work  in 
medicine  accomplished  there,  and  had  among  its  faculty 
the  most  distinguished  investigators  in  medical  science, 
and  especially  in  that  department  of  medicine— anatomy 
—which  by  an  unfortunate  tradition  the  Popes  are  said 
to  have  hampered. 

The  most  important  event  in  the  history  of  the  insti- 
tution, after  its  foundation,  was  its  establishment  in  the 
home  which  it  was  to  occupy  down  to  our  own  time.  Its 
new  habitation  was  prepared  for  it  by  the  Pope  who  has 
probably  been  the  most  maligned  in  history— Alexander 
VI.  A  magnificent  site  was  appropriated  for  it,  and  the 
construction  of  suitable  buildings  begun.  A  little  more 
than  a  decade  later,  Leo  X. ,  another  one  of  the  misunder- 
stood Popes,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  two  uni- 
versities in  Rome,  that  of  the  Papal  Court  and  that  of 


232  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

the  City,  would  do  better  work  if  combined  into  one, 
and  accordingly  this  combination  was  effected.  This 
made  provision  for  one  very  strong  teaching  faculty  in 
Rome.  The  final  steps  for  the  completion  of  the  union 
of  the  two  universities  were  taken  by  Pope  Alexander 
VII. ,  and  the  buildings  which  the  new  university  was 
to  occupy  were  finished  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the 
great  institution  of  learning  which  it  was  hoped  to 
create  in  Rome. 

The  first  of  the  great  professors  who  made  the  Papal 
Medical  School  famous  was  Realdo  Colombo,  often 
spoken  of  as  Columbus  simply,  who  was  invited  to  teach 
in  Rome  by  Pope  Paul  III.,  the  same  Pope  who  issued 
the  bull  founding  the  Jesuits.  Some  people  might  con- 
sider the  two  actions  as  representing  contrary  tenden- 
cies in  education,  but  they  are  not  such  as  know  either 
the  history  of  the  Jesuits,  or  of  the  constant  endeavor 
of  the  Popes  to  foster  education.  Columbus  came  to 
Rome,  as  we  have  said,  with  the  prestige  of  having  suc- 
ceeded Vesalius  at  Padua,  and  later  having  been  spe- 
cially tempted  by  the  reigning  prince  in  Pisa,  who 
wanted  to  create  a  great  medical  school  in  connection 
with  his  university  in  that  city,  which  he  was  at  that 
moment  trying  to  raise  to  distinction,  to  accept  the  pro- 
fessorship of  anatomy  there. 

Vesalius  was  still  alive  at  this  time,  and  the  period 
when,  if  we  would  credit  certain  historians  who  em- 
phasize the  opposition  between  the  Church  and  science, 
it  was  dangerous  to  dissect  human  bodies  had  not  yet 
passed.  It  is  interesting  to  read  the  account  of  Colum- 
bus's  reception  in  Rome,  and  the  interest  manifested  in 
his  work  by  all  classes  in  the  Roman  University  at  this 
time.  His  course  in  anatomy  was  so  enthusiastically 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  233 

attended  that,  as  he  himself  tells  in  a  letter  to  a  friend, 
he  often  had  several  hundred  persons  in  his  audience 
when  he  gave  his  anatomical  demonstrations  on  the 
cadaver.  These  were  not  all  medical  students,  but  many 
of  them  were  ecclesiastics,  and  some  of  them  important 
members  of  the  hierarchy.  Even  cardinals  manifested 
their  interest  in  anatomy,  and  occasionally  attended  the 
public  dissections— public,  that  is,  as  far  as  the  Uni- 
versity is  concerned— which  were  made  by  Columbus. 

Columbus 's  enthusiasm  for  anatomy  was  such  that,  as 
Dr.  Fisher  said  of  him  in  the  Annals  of  Anatomy  and 
Surgery,  Brooklyn,  1878-1880,  "he  dissected  an  extra- 
ordinary number  of  human  bodies,  and  so  devoted  him- 
self to  the  solution  of  problems  in  anatomy  and  physi- 
ology that  he  has  been  most  aptly  styled  the  Claude 
Bernard  of  the  sixteenth  century. "  In  one  year,  for  in- 
stance, he  is  said  to  have  dissected  no  less  than  fourteen 
bodies,  demonstrating,  as  Dr.  Fisher  has  said,  that  "it 
was  an  age  of  remarkable  tolerance  for  scientific  in- 
vestigation. " 

Besides  being  an  investigator,  Columbus  was  a  great 
teacher,  and  many  of  our  modern  methods  of  instruction 
in  medical  schools  had  their  origin  in  the  system  of  de- 
monstrations introduced  by  him.  His  descriptions  of 
the  demonstrations  for  students  upon  living  animals, 
show  that  some  of  the  most  recent  ideas  in  medical 
teaching  were  anticipated  by  this  Roman  professor  of 
anatomy  and  medicine  in  the  Renaissance  period.  His 
demonstrations  of  the  heart  and  blood-vessels  and  of 
the  actions  of  the  lungs  are  particularly  complete,  and 
must  have  given  his  students  a  very  practical  working 
knowledge  of  these  important  physiological  functions. 
In  a  word,  the  medical  teaching  of  the  Roman  Uni- 


234  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

versity,  under  him  at  this  time,  far  from  being  merely 
theoretic  and  distant  from  actual  experience  and  de- 
monstration, was  thoroughly  modern  in  its  methods. 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  practically  all  the  ecclesi- 
astical visitors  who  came  in  such  numbers  to  Rome, 
made  it  a  custom  at  this  time  to  attend  one  or  more  of 
Columbus' s  anatomical  lectures.  They  were  looked  upon 
as  one  of  the  features  of  the  Roman  university  life  of 
the  time.  How  much  good  was  accomplished  by  this 
can  scarcely  be  estimated.  The  example  must  have  had 
great  influence  especially  on  members  of  faculties  of 
various  educational  institutions  who  came  to  the  Papal 
See.  To  some  degree  at  least  these  interesting  teaching 
methods  must  have  aroused  in  such  men  the  desire  to 
see  them  emulated  in  their  own  teaching  institutions, 
and  therefore  must  have  done  much  to  advance  medical 
education.  The  fact  that  these  things  were  done  in  the 
Papal  Medical  School  only  emphasized  the  significance 
of  them  for  ecclesiastics,  and  made  them  more  ready 
to  bring  about  their  imitation  in  other  teaching 
centers. 

How  well  the  Popes  were  justified  in  their  estimation 
of  Columbus 's  genius  as  an  anatomical  investigator  will 
be  best  appreciated  from  his  discovery  of  the  pulmonary 
circulation,  which  formed,  as  Harvey  confesses  at  the 
beginning  of  his  work  on  the  circulation,  the  foundation 
on  which  Harvey's  great  discovery  naturally  arose.  It 
is  probable  that  Columbus  would  not  have  come  to 
Rome,  in  spite  of  the  flattering  offers  held  out  to  him, 
only  that  he  was  already  the  personal  friend  of  a  num- 
ber of  high  ecclesiastics,  and  even  of  the  Pope  who  ex- 
tended the  invitation.  How  well  the  Popes  continued 
to  think  of  Columbus  after  his  years  of  work  in  the 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  235 

Roman  Medical  School  will  be  well  understood  from  the 
fact  that,  when  his  great  work  De  Re  Anatomica  was 
published  after  his  death  by  his  sons,  Pope  Pius  IV.  ac- 
cepted the  dedication  of  it.  This  was  of  course  not  an 
unusual  thing,  for  many  books  on  other  sciences  were 
dedicated  to  the  Popes,  and  the  example  thus  set  was  sub- 
sequently imitated.  Twenty-five  years  later,  Professor 
Piccolomini  dedicated  his  Anatomical  Lectures  to  Pope 
Sixtus  V.  Subsequent  anatomical  publications  of  the 
Papal  Medical  School  were  issued  under  like  patronage. 
The  famous  edition  of  Eustachius's  anatomical  sketches, 
published  under  the  editorship  of  Lancisi,  is  a  notable 
example  of  this,  and  went  to  press  mainly  at  the  ex- 
pense of  Pope  Clement  XL ,  who  realized  how  valuable 
they  were  likely  to  be  for  the  teaching  of  anatomy. 

These  two  great  discoverers  in  anatomy,  Columbus 
and  Eustachius,  were  succeeded,  as  is  so  often  the  case 
in  the  history  of  university  faculties,  by  a  man  more  ca- 
pable of  writing  about  great  discoveries  than  of  making 
them  himself.  This  was  Piccolomini,  who  devoted  him- 
self to  showing  how  much  the  ancients  had  taught  about 
anatomy,  though  at  the  same  time  he  also  made  clear  the 
place  occupied  by  modern  anatomical  discoveries.  While 
his  name  is  not  attached  to  any  great  discovery  in  the 
science  of  anatomy,  he  is  generally  acknowledged  to 
have  been  one  of  the  great  teachers  of  his  time  and  one 
who  was  needed  just  then  in  order  to  make  people  re- 
alize how  the  old  and  the  new  in  anatomy  must  be  co- 
ordinated. Piccolomini 's  successor  in  the  chair  of  anat- 
omy at  Rome  was  another  original  genius  and  investigator 
whose  name,  however,  and  fame  has  never  been  as  great 
among  English-speaking  people  as  in  Italy,  or  among 
the  Latin  races  generally.  The  fact  that  he  was  a  rival 


236  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

of  Harvey's  in  the  matter  of  the  discovery  of  the  circu- 
lation of  the  blood  has  always  made  the  Italians  exag- 
gerate his  position  in  medical  history,  while  it  has 
undoubtedly  made  English  writers  of  medical  history 
diminish  the  importance  of  his  work. 

Historians  of  science  consider  him  worthy  to  be  called 
the  greatest  living  scientist  of  his  time— the  end  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  He  was  not  only  a  scientific  physician, 
but  he  was  an  authority  in  all  the  sciences  related  to  med- 
icine, and  indeed  had  profound  interests  in  every  branch 
of  physical  science.  His  contemporaries  looked  up  to 
him  as  a  leader  in  scientific  thought.  To  anyone  who 
examines  the  question  of  the  discovery  of  the  circulation 
of  the  blood  with  freedom  from  bias,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  but  that  the  honor  for  this  discovery  has  been 
unduly  taken  away  from  Caesalpinus  in  English-speaking 
countries,  to  be  conferred  solely  on  Harvey.  Not  that  there 
is  any  wish  to  lessen  the  value  of  Harvey's  magnificent 
original  work,  nor  make  little  of  his  wonderful  powers 
of  observation,  nor  of  the  marvelous  experimental  and 
logical  method  by  which  he  followed  out  his  thoughts  to 
their  legitimate  conclusion,  but  that  I  would  insist  on 
giving  honor  where  honor  is  due,  though  most  writers  in 
English  refuse  to  give  Caesalpinus 's  claims  a  proper 
share  of  attention. 

The  Italians  have  always  declared  that  Caesalpinus 
was  the  real  discoverer  of  the  circulation,  and  there  is 
no  doubt  that  his  career  occurs  just  at  that  point  in  the 
evolution  of  the  medical  sciences,  and  especially  anatomy 
and  physiology  in  Italy,  where  this  discovery  would 
naturally  come.  Lest  it  should  be  thought,  however, 
that  my  interest  in  the  Popes  and  the  Papal  Medical 
School  has  led  me  to  exaggerate  the  claims  of  Caes- 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  237 

alpinus  as  a  great  naturalist  and  medical  scientist,!  prefer 
to  quote  the  description  of  him  given  by  Professor 
Michael  Foster  in  his  lectures  on  the  History  of  Physi- 
ology, delivered  in  this  country  as  the  Lane  Lectures,  at 
the  Cooper  Medical  College  in  San  Francisco,  and  pub- 
lished by  the  Cambridge  University  Press,  1901.  Pro- 
fessor Foster  was  not  one  to  exaggerate  the  claims  of  any 
Italian,  and  least  of  all  of  any  Italian  who  might  be  sup- 
posed to  have  a  claim  that  would  stand  against  Harvey's. 
The  soupcon  of  Chauvinism  in  his  treatment  of  Servetus 
and  Columbus  in  this  regard  is  indeed  rather  amusing. 
He  said:— 

"  Of  a  very  different  stamp  to  Columbus  was  Andreas 
Caesalpinus.  Born  at  Arezzo  in  1519,  he  was  for  many 
years  Professor  of  Medicine  at  Pisa,  namely,  from  1567  to 
1592,  when  he  passed  to  Rome,  where  he  became  Professor 
at  the  Sapienza  University  and  Physician  to  Pope  Clem- 
ent VIII. ,  and  where  at  a  ripe  old  age  he  died  in  1603. 

"If  Columbus  lacked  general  culture,  Caesalpinus  was 
drowned  in  it.  Learned  in  all  the  learning  of  the  ancients 
and  an  enthusiastic  Aristotelian,  he  also  early  laid  hold  of 
all  the  new  learning  of  the  time.  Naturalist  as  well  as 
physician,  he  taught  at  Pisa  botany  as  well  as  medicine, 
being  from  1555  to  1575  Professor  of  Botany,  with  charge 
of  the  Botanic  garden  founded  there  in  1543,  the  first  of 
its  kind— one  remaining  until  the  present  day." 

Professor  Foster  admits  that  Caesalpinus  had  a  won- 
derful power  of  synthetising  knowledge  already  in  hand 
and  anticipating  conclusions  in  science  that  were  to  be 
confirmed  subsequently.  In  his  Medical  Questions, 
though  the  work  is  written  in  rambling,  discursive  vein, 
he  enunciated  views  which,  however  he  arrived  at  them, 
certainly  foreshadowed  or  even  anticipated  those  which 


238  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

were  later  to  be  established  on  a  sound  basis.  Foster 
quotes  a  passage  in  which  Caesalpinus  made  it  very  clear 
that  he  thoroughly  understood  the  mechanism  of  the 
circulation  and  grasped  every  detail  essential  to  it.  After 
quoting  this  passage,  which  it  must  be  confessed  is 
rambling,  Foster  thus  sums  up  what  Caesalpinus  has  to 
say  with  regard  to  the  circulation:— 

' '  He  thus  appears  to  have  grasped  the  important  truth, 
hidden,  it  would  seem,  from  all  before  him,  that  the 
heart,  at  its  systole,  discharges  its  contents  into  the 
aorta  (and  pulmonary  artery),  and  at  its  diastole  receives 
blood  from  the  vena  cava  (and  pulmonary  vein)/' 

"  Again,  in  his  Medical  Questions  he  seems  to  have 
grasped  the  facts  of  the  flow  from  the  arteries  to  the 
veins,  and  of  the  flow  along  the  veins  to  the  heart." 

That  there  was  no  change  of  Papal  policy  in  the  next 
century  can  be  gathered  from  an  interesting  phase  of 
Papal  interest  in  science  which,  though  not  directly 
concerned  with  medicine,  eventually  resulted  in  impor- 
tant theoretic  advances  in  medical  science.  This  was 
the  encouragement  of  Father  Kircher 's  work  at  Rome. 
Father  Kircher  was  the  Jesuit  who  made  the  first 
scientific  museum.  As  the  result  of  his  general  interest 
in  things  scientific  he  wrote  a  little  book  on  the  pest. 
In  this  book  he  stated  in  very  clear  terms  the  modern 
doctrine  of  the  origin  of  disease  from  little  living  things, 
which  he  called  corpuscles.  Because  of  this  Tyndall 
attributes  to  Father  Kircher  the  first  realization  of  the 
role  that  bacteria  play  in  disease.  Even  more  won- 
derful than  this,  however,  was  Father  Kircher 's  antic- 
ipation of  modern  ideas  with  regard  to  the  conveyance 
of  disease.  He  insisted  that  contagious  diseases,  as  a  rule, 
were  not  carried,  as  had  been  thought,  by  the  air,  but 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  239 

were  conveyed  from  one  person  to  another,  either  directly, 
or  by  the  intermediation  of  some  living  thing.  He  consid- 
ered that  cats  and  dogs  were  surely  active  in  conveying 
diseases,  and  he  even  reached  the  conclusion  that  insects 
were  also  important  in  this  matter.  His  expressions  with 
regard  to  this  are  not  of  the  indefinite  character  which 
one  often  encounters  in  the  supposed  anticipation  of  im- 
portant principles  in  medicine,  but  are  very  precise  and 
definite.  Father  Kircher  is  quoted  by  Dr.  Howard  Kelly, 
of  Baltimore,  in  his  life  of  Major  Walter  Reed,  whose 
work  in  showing  that  yellow  fever  is  transmitted  by  mos- 
quitoes is  well  known,  as  saying  in  one  place,  "  Flies  carry 
the  plague, ' '  and  in  another  place,  ' '  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  flies  feed  on  the  internal  secretions  of  the  diseased 
dying,  then  flying  away  they  deposit  their  excretions 
on  the  food  in  neighboring  dwellings,  and  persons  who 
eat  it  are  thus  infected."  It  is  interesting  to  find  that 
the  Professor  of  the  Practice  of  Medicine  in  the  Papal 
University  at  Rome  when  this  book  was  published,  far 
from  resenting,  as  many  professors  of  medicine  might, 
the  excursion  of  an  outsider  into  his  science,  said  Father 
Kircher 's  book  "not  only  contains  an  excellent  resume 
of  all  that  is  known  about  the  pest  or  plague,  but  also 
many  valuable  hints  and  suggestions  on  the  regional 
spread  of  the  disease  which  had  never  before  been 
made."  He  did  not  hesitate  to  add  that  it  was  marvel- 
ous for  a  man,  not  educated  as  a  physician,  to  have 
reached  such  surprising  conclusions,  which  seemed 
worthy  of  general  acceptance.  All  this,  it  may  be  said  in 
passing,  was  within  a  few  years  after  the  trial  of  Galileo. 
In  this  next  century  the  Popes  continued  their  special 
efforts  to  secure  the  greatest  teachers  of  anatomy  and 
physiology  for  their  Roman  medical  school.  One  of  the 


240  THE    POPES  AND    SCIENCE 

results  was  the  appointment  of  Malpighi,  whose  name 
has  deservedly  become  attached  to  more  structures  in 
the  human  body  because  of  tissues  which  he  first  studied 
in  detail,  than  any  other  man  in  the  history  of  medicine. 
Malpighi  represents  the  beginning  of  most  of  the  com- 
parative biological  sciences,  and  his  original  observations 
upon  plants,  upon  the  lower  animals,  on  fishes  and  then 
on  the  anatomical  structure  of  man  and  the  higher  ani- 
mals, stamp  him  as  an  investigating  genius  of  the  highest 
order.  He  was  the  personal  friend  of  Innocent  XL ,  who 
wished  to  have  him  near  him  at  Rome  as  his  own  medi- 
cal adviser,  and  besides  desired  the  prestige  of  his  fame 
and  the  stimulating  example  of  his  investigating  spirit 
for  the  students  of  the  medical  school  of  the  Sapienza. 
The  closing  years  of  Malpighi 's  life  were  rendered  hap- 
pier, and  his  wonderful  researches  were  as  well  re- 
warded as  such  work  can  be,  by  the  estimation  in  which 
he  was  held  at  Rome. 

Malpighi  was  succeeded  as  Papal  Physician  and  Pro- 
fessor in  Rome  by  Tozzi,  who  is  distinguished  in  the  his- 
tory of  medicine  for  his  commentaries  on  the  ancients 
rather  than  for  original  observation,  but  who  was  looked 
upon  in  his  time  as  one  of  the  most  prominent  physicians 
in  Italy.  Tozzi  had  been  the  Professor  of  Medicine  and 
Mathematics  at  the  University  of  Naples,  where  he  be- 
came famous.  From  here  he  received  a  flattering  invi- 
tation to  the  chair  of  physic  at  Padua.  In  order  that  he 
might  not  desert  Naples,  his  salary  was  raised  and  he 
was  given  the  post  of  Protomedicus  or  Chief  Physician 
to  the  Court.  It  was  after  this  that  the  death  of  Mal- 
pighi left  an  important  chair  vacant  in  Rome,  and  there 
being  no  one  apparently  more  worthy  than  this  man  for 
whom  other  important  universities  were  contending,  he 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  241 

was  offered  the  chair  on  such  excellent  conditions  that 
he  accepted  it.  It  is  another  case  of  the  Popes  being- 
not  only  willing  and  even  anxious,  but  also  able  because 
of  their  position,  to  secure  the  best  talent  available  for 
their  medical  school  at  the  Roman  University. 

Undoubtedly  one  of  the  greatest  members  of  the 
faculty  that  the  Papal  Medical  School  ever  had  is  Lan- 
cisi,  one  of  the  supreme  medical  teachers  of  history, 
who  is  usually  considered  one  of  the  founders  of  modern 
clinical  medicine.  When  at  the  beginning  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  Boerhaave  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
world  by  his  bedside  teaching  of  medicine  at  Leyden, 
there  were  two  occupants  of  thrones  in  Europe  who 
proved  to  have  particular  interest  in  this  new  departure. 
They  were  perhaps  the  last  two  who  might  ordinarily  be 
expected  to  have  much  use  for  such  improvements  in 
medical  education.  One  of  them  was  the  Empress  Ma- 
ria Theresa,  of  Austria,  whose  patronage  of  Boerhaave 's 
pupil,  Van  Swieten,  secured  the  establishment  of  that 
system  of  clinical  teaching  which  has  since  made  the 
Vienna  Medical  School  famous.  The  other  was  the  Pope. 
With  his  approbation  Lancisi  established  clinical  teach- 
ing at  Rome,  and  thus  did  much  to  maintain  at  Rome 
a  great  center  of  medical  progress  during  the  eighteenth 
century. 

Lancisi  was  graduated  at  the  Sapienza,  the  Roman 
University,  at  the  early  age  of  eighteen.  When  only 
twenty-two  he  became  assistant  physician  at  the  Santo 
Spirito  Hospital  and  began  to  show  the  first  hint  of  the 
brilliant  genius  he  was  to  display  later  in  life. 

Some  ten  years  later,  as  the  result  of  a  competitive 
examination  which  still  further  demonstrated  his  talents, 
he  was  chosen  Professor  of  Anatomy  in  his  Alma  Mater, 


242  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

the  Sapienza.  He  was  only  thirty-three  at  the  time,  and 
the  fact  that  he  should  be  chosen  shows  that  the  Papal 
University  was  ready  to  take  advantage  of  talent  where- 
ever  it  found  it  and  did  not  allow  itself  to  be  won  only 
by  notoriety  at  a  distance.  The  excellence  of  the  choice 
was  demonstrated  before  long  by  Lancisi 's  brilliant 
career  as  a  teacher  and  an  original  investigator.  Some 
of  the  most  distinguished  medical  men  from  all  over 
the  world  came  to  listen  to  his  lectures  (according  to 
Hirsch's  Biographical  Lexicon  of  the  Most  Prominent 
Physicians  of  All  Times  and  Peoples),  and  even  Mal- 
pighi  and  Tozzi,  the  Papal  physicians  during  the  time, 
were  among  his  auditors.1 

After  the  departure  of  Tozzi  from  Rome  Lancisi  be- 
came the  Papal  physician.  He  continued  to  be  the 
medical  adviser  of  Popes  Innocent  XL  and  XII.  and  of 
Clement  XL  until  his  death  in  1720.  It  was  under 
Clement  that  he  had  the  new  clinic  built,  in  which 
teaching  after  the  manner  of  Boerhaave  was  to  be 
established.  At  his  death  Lancisi  left  his  fortune  and 
his  library  to  Santo  Spirito  Hospital,  on  condition  that  a 
new  portion  of  the  hospital  should  be  erected  for  women. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  he  belongs  among  the  most 
distinguished  of  contributors  to  medical  science,  and 
Hirsch  declares  that  anatomy,  practical  medicine,  and 
hygiene  are  indebted  to  him  for  notable  achievements. 
His  books  are  still  classics.  The  one  on  Sudden  Death 
worked  a  revolution  in  the  medical  diseases  of  the  brain 
and  heart.  His  work  De  Motu  Cordis  et  Aneurysmati- 
bus  has  been  pronounced  epoch-making,  and  his  sug- 
gestion of  percussion  over  the  sternum  in  order  to  deter- 

1  Most  of  these  details  are  taken  from  Hirsch's  Biographisches  Lexicon  der  hervor- 
ragenden  Aertzte  aller  Zeiten  und  Volker.    Wien  und  Leipzig:,  1886. 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  243 

mine  the  presence  of  an  aneurysm,  made  him  almost  an 
anticipator  of  Auenbrugger  and  prompted  Morgagni's 
famous  book  De  Sedibus  et  Causis  Morborum,  which  ap- 
peared after  his  death.  Lancisi's  work  on  Aneurysms 
was  not  published  until  after  his  death. 

Two  others  of  his  books  deserve  mention  because  they 
show  how  broad  were  the  interests  of  the  man  in  many 
phases  of  progress  in  medicine.  Their  titles  are  Dis- 
eases and  Infections  of  Domestic  Animals  and  The  Climate 
of  Rome. 

The  next  great  name  in  Italian  medicine  is  that  of 
Morgagni.  He  was  not  a  regular  Papal  physician,  nor 
a  member  of  the  faculty  of  the  Papal  Medical  School, 
but  he  was  often  consulted,  as  we  told  in  the  chapter 
on  Papal  Physicians,  both  as  to  the  health  of  the  Popes 
and  the  methods  of  teaching  at  the  Roman  Medical 
School.  His  life  brings  us  down  almost  to  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  the  cordial  relations  of  the  Popes  to 
him,  far  from  being  an  exception  in  the  history  of 
medicine,  are  only  typical  of  the  attitude  of  the  Roman 
Pontiffs  to  medical  and  all  other  scientists  from  the 
dawn  of  the  history  of  science  in  modern  times. 

While  the  Papal  Medical  School  at  Rome,  attached  to 
the  university  of  the  city  and  directly  under  the  control 
of  the  Papal  Curia,  more  especially  deserves  the  name 
thus  given  it,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  there  was  in 
the  Papal  States  a  series  of  medical  schools  in  various 
cities.  One  of  these,  at  Perugia,  founded  by  a  bull  of 
Pope  John  XXII.,  has  come  under  consideration  in  the 
chapter  on  A  Papal  Patron  of  Medical  Education.  An- 
other medical  school,  that  of  Ferrara,  which  also  was  in 
the  Papal  States,  had  considerable  prestige.  Some  dis- 
tinguished professors  taught  there  before  going  to 


244  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Padua  or  Bologna.  At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  Bologna,  after  having  been  during  the  preced- 
ing three  centuries  under  the  domination  of  one  power- 
ful family  or  another,  from  the  Pepoli  to  the  Bentivogli, 
and  then  to  the  Visconti  and  back  again  to  the  Benti- 
vogli, was  incorporated  in  the  Papal  States  under  Pope 
Julius  II.  At  this  time  the  Medical  School  of  Bologna 
was  at  the  height  of  its  reputation  and  was  one  of  the 
two  greatest  medical  schools  in  Italy.  Padua  was  its 
only  rival.  Shortly  after  this  Rome  became  a  serious 
competitor  in  medical  education.  Practically,  then,  this 
was  a  second  Papal  medical  school,  almost  as  directly 
under  the  control  of  the  Popes  as  the  Roman  Medical 
School.  Far  from  there  being  any  diminution  in  the 
glory  or  the  efficiency  of  the  Bolognese  Medical  School, 
its  reputation  even  became  enhanced  after  the  city  came 
under  the  control  of  the  Popes. 

This  is  all  the  more  surprising  because,  as  we  have 
shown,  just  about  this  time  the  Popes  began  the  work 
of  making  their  Medical  School  at  Rome  the  most  im- 
portant center  for  medical  education,  especially  in  the 
scientific  phases  of  medicine— anatomy,  physiology,  and 
comparative  anatomy— that  there  was  at  that  time  in 
the  world.  In  spite  of  this  rivalry,  however,  nothing 
was  done  directly  to  hurt  the  prestige  of  the  school  of 
Bologna,  and  indeed  the  rivalry  seems  to  have  been  more 
of  an  encouraging  competition  than  in  any  sense  a  de- 
structive struggle  for  existence.  When  the  Popes  took 
possession  of  Bologna,  Alexander  Achillini  was  professor 
of  anatomy  and  medicine  in  the  Bolognese  school,  and 
his  discoveries  and  methods  of  investigation  attracted 
the  attention  of  students  from  all  over  the  world. 
His  assistant  for  many  years  and  his  successor  in  the 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  245 

post  was  Berengar  of  Carpi,  of  whom  we  have  already 
said  much  in  the  chapter  Anatomy  Down  to  the  Renais- 
sance. For  some  time  Vesalius  lectured  on  medicine  and 
anatomy  at  Bologna,  and  one  of  Berengar 's  most  distin- 
guished successors  in  the  sixteenth  century  was  Aranzi, 
who  occupied  the  post  of  anatomical  professor  for 
thirty-two  years  and  who  corrected  a  number  of  errors 
in  anatomical  detail  that  had  been  made  by  Vesalius  and 
others  of  the  preceding  generation.  He  confirmed 
Columbus 's  discoveries  at  Rome  with  regard  to  the 
course  which  the  blood  follows  in  passing  from  the  right 
to  the  left  side  of  the  heart,  and  made  many  important 
additions  to  the  knowledge  of  the  anatomical  relations 
of  the  cavities  of  the  heart,  the  valves,  and  the  great 
blood  vessels.  There  are  a  number  of  important  struc- 
tures in  the  brain  which  owe  their  names  to  him,  and 
his  descriptions  of  them  are  better,  according  to  Prof. 
Turner,  than  those  of  other  anatomists  for  a  century 
after  his  time. 

The  tradition  of  great  teachers  thus  carried  on  during 
the  first  century  after  the  absorption  of  Bologna  into 
the  Papal  States,  continued  uninterruptedly  in  the  next 
century,  when  we  find  on  the  list  of  professors  at  Bol- 
ogna such  names  as  those  of  Malpighi,  the  greatest 
mind  in  the  medical  sciences  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  his  colleague  Fracassati,  who,  though  over- 
shrouded  by  Malpighi,  still  claims  a  prominent  place  in 
the  history  of  medicine.  Bologna  has  a  special  feature 
of  medical  development  to  its  credit  which,  because  of  its 
importance  for  science  in  general  as  well  as  for  medicine, 
deserves  to  be  mentioned  here.  During  the  century 
after  the  Popes  became  the  rulers  of  the  city  scientific 
societies  were  founded  here,  and  as  the  professors  and 


246  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

students  of  the  medical  school  were  also  the  most  inter- 
ested in  science  in  general,  the  membership  of  these 
societies  was  largely  made  up  of  individuals  connected 
with  the  medical  school.  A  special  society  for  the  cul- 
tivation of  anatomical  knowledge,  the  first  of  its  kind 
ever  founded,  was  established  in  Bologna  scarcely  more 
than  a  century  after  the  city  came  under  the  Papal 
dominion.  It  was  called  the  Coro  Anatomico,  or  anatom- 
ical choir,  and  had  at  first  only  nine  members.  Among 
these,  however,  were  such  distinguished  men  as  Mal- 
pighi,  Fracassati,  Capponi,  and  Massari,  to  the  last  of 
whom  the  initiative  of  the  foundation  of  the  society  is 
said  to  have  been  due.  Bologna  was  noted  during  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  for  the  number  of 
foreign  students  of  medicine  who  were  attracted  to  its 
hospitable  medical  school  and  who  carried  the  tradition 
of  science  for  its  own  sake,  so  characteristic  of  this  Papal 
Medical  School,  to  all  parts  of  the  world. 

After  this  consideration  of  the  relation  of  the  Popes 
to  medical  science  during  many  centuries  when  medicine 
practically  included  all  the  physical  sciences,  it  may 
seem  utterly  inexplicable  to  any  fair-minded  person  that 
the  tradition  of  the  opposition  of  the  Popes  to  science 
and  scientific  educational  development  should  have  ap- 
parently become  a  commonplace  in  history.  This  will 
not  be  a  surprise,  however,  to  those  who  know  how  per- 
versive and  influential  has  been  the  Protestant  tradition 
which  from  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  has 
devoted  itself  to  blackening  the  reputation  of  the  Church, 
the  Popes,  and  Catholic  ecclesiastics  generally.  No- 
where is  this  more  true  than  in  history  as  written  for 
English-speaking  people.  Those  who  left  the  old  Church 
and  their  immediate  descendants,  justified  their  with- 


PAPAL    MEDICAL    SCHOOL  247 

drawal  to  themselves  as  well  as  others,  by  taking  every 
possible  excuse  and  inventing  every  possible  pretext,  to 
show  how  unworthy  of  their  continued  allegiance  the 
old  Church  had  been.  The  point  of  view  thus  assumed 
was  taken  quite  seriously  by  succeeding  generations, 
until  at  length  a  whole  body  of  historical  traditions, 
utterly  unfounded  in  fact,  accumulated,  especially  in 
England,  where  it  must  be  remembered  that  for  several 
centuries  Catholics  were  not  in  a  position  to  impugn  and 
eradicate  it.  This  unfortunate  state  of  affairs,  and  not 
real  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  Popes  to  science,  is  the 
source  of  the  tradition  with  regard  to  the  supposed  op- 
position between  the  Church  and  science. 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS. 

Probably  the  most  important  work  that  the  Popes  did 
for  medical  science  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  their  en- 
couragement of  the  development  of  a  hospital  system 
throughout  Christianity.  The  story  of  this  movement  is 
not  only  interesting  because  it  represents  a  coordination 
of  social  effort  for  the  relief  of  suffering  humanity,  but 
also  because  it  represents  the  provision  of  opportunities 
for  the  study  of  disease  and  the  skilled  care  of  the  ail- 
ing such  as  can  come  in  no  other  way.  Those  who  are 
familiar  with  the  history  of  medicine,  and  especially  of 
surgery,  know  that  a  great  period  of  progress  in  these 
departments  came  during  the  thirteenth  century.  The 
next  two  centuries  indeed  represent  an  epoch  of  surgical 
advance  such  as  was  probably  never  surpassed  and  only 
equalled  by  the  last  century.  This  seems  much  to  say 
of  a  medieval  century  700  years  ago,  but  our  chapter  on 
surgery  will,  I  think,  amply  justify  the  assertion.  The 
reasons  for  this  great  development  in  surgical  knowl- 
edge are  properly  understood  only  when  we  come  to 
realize  that  there  was  a  corresponding  development  in 
hospital  organization.  These  two  features  of  medicine 
always  go  hand  in  hand.  The  hospitals,  as  might  be 
expected,  preceded  the  surgical  development,  and  owed 
their  great  progress  at  this  time  mainly  to  the  Popes. 

The  city  hospital  as  we  have  it  at  the  present  time, 
that  is,  the  public  institution  meant  for  the  reception  of 
those  suffering  from  accidents,  from  acute  diseases  of 
various  kinds,  and  also  for  providing  shelter  for  those 

(248) 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          249 

who  have  become  ill  and  have  no  friends  to  take  care  of 
them,  is  an  establishment  dating  from  the  beginning  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  It  will  doubtless  be  a  surprise 
to  most  people  to  be  told  that  the  modern  world  owes 
this  beneficent  institution  to  the  fatherly  watchfulness, 
the  kindly  foresight,  and  the  very  practical  charity  of 
one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Popes,  whose  name  is  usually 
associated  with  ambitious  schemes  for  making  the  Pa- 
pacy a  great  political  power  in  Europe,  rather  than  as 
the  prime  mover  in  what  was  probably  the  most  far- 
reaching  good  work  of  supreme  social  significance  that 
was  ever  accomplished. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  mainly  as 
the  result  of  those  much  abused  sources  of  many  bene- 
fits to  mankind  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Crusades,  the 
people  of  Europe  had  begun  to  dwell  together  in  towns 
much  more  than  before.  It  is  closeness  of  population 
that  gives  rise  to  the  social  needs.  While  people  were 
scattered  throughout  the  country  diseases  were  not  so 
prevalent,  epidemics  were  not  likely  to  spread,  and  the 
charitable  spirit  of  the  rural  people  themselves  was  quite 
sufficient  to  enable  them  to  care  for  the  few  ailing  per- 
sons to  be  found.  With  the  advent  of  even  small  city 
life,  however,  came  the  demand  for  hospitals  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word,  and  this  need  did  not  long  escape  the 
watchful  eye  of  Innocent  III.  He  recognized  the  neces- 
sity for  a  city  hospital  in  Rome,  and  in  accordance  with 
his  very  practical  character  and  wonderful  activity,  at 
once  set  about  its  foundation. 

As  was  to  be  expected  from  his  wise  foresight,  he  did 
not  do  so  without  due  consideration.  He  consulted  many 
visitors  to  Rome  and  many  distinguished  medical  author- 
ities as  to  what  they  considered  to  be  the  best  conducted 


250  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

and  most  ably  managed  institution  for  the  care  of  the 
sick  in  Europe  at  that  time.  Almost  by  common  con- 
sent he  was  assured  that  the  most  successful  hospital 
management  was  to  be  found  at  Montpelier.  This 
French  town  near  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  had 
succeeded  to  the  medical  prestige  formerly  held  by  Sa- 
lerno, and  was  now  the  favorite  place  of  pilgrimage 
for  the  nobility  and  reigning  sovereigns  of  Europe, 
whenever  they  became  so  ill  that  their  ordinary  medical 
attendants  seemed  to  be  able  to  do  nothing  for  them. 
Pope  Innocent  was  further  told  that  the  institution  at 
Montpelier  which  was  best  conducted  was  undoubtedly 
the  Hospital  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Accordingly,  the  Pope  extended  an  invitation  which, 
under  the  circumstances,  must  have  been  practically  a 
command,  to  Guy  or  Guido  of  Montpelier,  the  adminis- 
trative head  to  whom  the  hospital  there  owed  its  suc- 
cessful organization,  to  come  to  Rome  and  establish  a 
hospital  of  his  order  in  the  Papal  capital.  He  provided 
the  order  with  a  sufficient  foundation  in  what  is  now 
known  as  the  Borgo,  not  far  from  the  present  Vatican. 
On  this  was  erected,  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  a  hospital  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  still  exists 
there,  though,  of  course,  the  building  has  been  many 
times  renewed  since  the  original  foundation.  This  hos- 
pital of  the  Holy  Spirit  soon  attained  a  world- wide  repu- 
tation for  careful  nursing  and  medical  attendance  and 
for  the  discretion  with  which  its  surgical  cases  were 
treated.  It  was  understood  that  all  the  ailing  picked  up 
on  the  streets  should  be  brought  to  the  hospital,  and 
that  all  the  wounded  and  injured  would  be  welcomed 
there.  Besides,  certain  of  the  attendants  of  the  hospital 
went  out  every  day  to  look  for  any  patients  who  might 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          251 

be  neglected  or  be  without  sufficient  care,  especially  in 
the  poorer  quarters  of  the  city,  and  these  were  also 
transported  to  the  hospital.  This  old  Santo-Spirito  hos- 
pital then  was  exactly  the  model  of  our  modern  city 
hospitals. 

Pope  Innocent's  idea,  however,  was  not  to  establish  a 
hospital  at  Rome  alone,  but  his  fatherly  solicitude  went 
out  to  every  city  in  Christendom.  In  accordance  with 
this  pre-determined  plan,  by  personal  persuasion,  by  the 
display  of  an  interest  in  hospital  work,  and  by  official 
Papal  encouragement  he  succeeded  in  having,  during  his 
own  pontificate,  a  number  of  hospitals  established  in  all 
parts  of  the  then  civilized  world  on  the  model  of  this 
hospital  of  the  Holy  Ghost  at  Rome.  The  initiative  thus 
given  proved  lasting,  and  even  after  the  Pontiff's  death 
hospitals  of  the  Holy  Ghost  continued  to  multiply  in 
various  parts  of  Europe,  until  scarcely  a  city  of  any 
importance  was  without  one. 

It  is  no  less  a  person  than  Virchow,  the  greatest  of 
modern  medical  scientists,  who  has  traced  the  origins  of 
the  modern  German  city  hospitals  back  to  Innocent  and 
given  us  a  list  of  those  which  were  established  during 
the  century  following  his  pontificate.  Here  are  the 
names  of  those  towns  from  Virchow 's  list  in  which  hos- 
pitals were  founded  during  the  thirteenth  century  in 
Germany  alone,  which  will  show  very  convincingly  how 
widespread  the  hospital  establishment  movement  was  : 
Zurich,  St.  Gallen,  Bern,  Basel,  Constanz,  Villingen, 
Pfullendorf,  Freiburg,  Breisch,  Stephansfelden,  Oppen- 
heim,  Mainz,  Speyer,  Coblenz  (an  der  Leer),  Cologne, 
Crefeld,  Ulm,  Biberach,  Rothenburg,  Kirchheim,  Mer- 
gentheim,  Wimpfen,  Reutlingen,  Memmingen,  Augsburg, 
Rothenburg  a.  Dauber,  Miinchen,  Frankfort  a.  M.,  Hox- 


252  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

ter,  Dortmund,  Brandenburg,  Spandau,  Salzwedel,  Sten- 
dal,  Berlin,  Perleberg,  Pritzwalk,  Halberstadt,  Halle, 
Quedlinburg,  Helmstedt,  Magdeburg,  Sangerhauson, 
Eisenach,  Naumburg,  Hanover,  Gottingen,  Northeim, 
Bremen,  Hamburg,  Liibeck,  Parchim,  Wismar,  Rostock, 
Schwerin,  Mollen,  Oldeslo,  Ratzelburg,  Ribnitz,  Stettin, 
Stralsund,  Greifswald,  Demmin.  Anclam,  Breslau,  Bunz- 
lau,  Gorlitz,  Brieg,  Glatz,  Sagan,  Steinau,  Glogau,  In- 
owraclaw,  Wien,  Meran,  Brixen,  Sterzing,  Elbing, 
Thorn,  Konigsberg,  Danzig,  Marienburg,  Riga. 

Many  of  these  towns  were  comparatively  small.  In 
fact,  there  were  no  cities  that  we  moderns  would  call 
large  in  the  thirteenth  century.  London  had  probably 
not  more  than  some  twenty  thousand ;  Paris,  even  at 
the  most  flourishing  period  of  the  university,  under  fifty 
thousand.  Most  of  the  German  towns  had  less  than  ten 
thousand,  and  of  these  which  are  the  sites  of  hospital 
foundations  mentioned  by  Virchow,  probably  not  more 
than  a  dozen,  if  that  many,  had  more  than  five  thousand 
inhabitants.  Since  the  movement  spread  even  to  such 
small  towns,  it  can  be  readily  understood  how  far-reach- 
ing in  its  effects  was  the  policy  initiated  by  Innocent 
III.  and  how  thoroughly  he  laid  the  secure  foundations 
of  a  great  Christian  hospital  system. 

Since  the  Papal  example  and  recommendations  pro- 
duced so  much  effect  upon  Germany,  which  was  not  so 
closely  united  to  the  Holy  See  as  were  the  Latin  nations, 
it  is  easy  to  understand  what  an  impetus  to  the  hospital 
movement  must  have  been  given  in  the  southern  coun- 
tries, even  though  we  have  not  had  the  advantage  of  so 
patient  a  collector  of  information  as  Virchow  to  give  us 
all  the  details.  In  the  larger  cities  hospitals  were  already 
in  existence,  and  these  took  on  a  new  life  because  of  the 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          253 

hospital  movement.  In  Paris,  for  instance,  the  Hotel 
Dieu,  which  had  been  in  existence  for  some  time,  be- 
came so  cramped  for  room  in  its  original  location,  just 
beyond  the  Petit  Pont,  that  at  this  time  it  had  to  be 
transferred  to  its  present  commodious  quarters  next  to 
the  Cathedral,  on  the  square  of  Notre  Dame.  The  hos- 
pital became  a  city  hospital  in  the  genuine  sense  of  the 
word,  and  the  citizens  became  interested  in  it  to  a  note- 
worthy degree.  It  began  to  be  the  subject  of  bequests 
and  benefactions  of  all  kinds  on  the  part  of  the  clergy 
and  laity,  and  many  interesting  details  of  these  benefac- 
tions are  still  at  hand  in  documents  contained  in  the  hos- 
pital archives  of  Paris.1 

There  are  some  curious  historical  details  in  these  old 
documents,  since  they  serve  to  show  the  method  in  use 
for  designating  houses  at  that  time  when,  it  must  be  re- 
called, street  numbers  had  not  as  yet  been  invented. 
Most  of  the  houses  had  on  their  facades  some  image  or 
figure  by  which  they  were  known.  The  Hotel  Dieu,  for 
instance,  acquired  during  the  thirteenth  century  the 
houses  with  the  image  of  St.  Louis,  with  the  sign  of  the 
golden  lion  of  Flanders,  with  the  image  of  the  butterfly 
with  that  of  the  wolf,  with  the  images  of  the  three 
monkeys,  with  the  image  of  the  iron  lion,  with  the  cross 
of  gold,  with  the  three  chimneys,  etc.  A  certain  amount 
for  the  support  of  the  hospital  was  allowed  out  of  the 
city  revenues,  and  a  favorite  method  was  to  permit,  in 
times  of  special  stress  upon  the  hospital,  the  collection 
of  a  tax  on  all  of  a  certain  commodity  that  came  into  the 
city.  For  a  time,  for  instance,  during  an  epidemic  or 
other  period  of  necessity,  a  hospital  would  obtain  per- 

1  Bordier,  Archives  Hospitalieres  De  Paris,  Paris  ;  Champion,  Publications  for  the 
Society  of  the  History  of  Paris,  1877. 


254  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

mission  to  collect  a  tax  on  all  the  salt,  or,  occasionally, 
on  all  the  wheat  that  entered  Paris.  This  serves  to  show 
the  renewed  interest  in  city  hospital  affairs  that  had 
arisen  mainly  as  the  result  of  Papal  initiative  and  en- 
couragement. 

In  the  smaller  towns  in  France  there  was  the  same 
hospital  movement  as  characterized  the  situation  in  Ger- 
many. In  the  south,  the  closeness  of  Montpelier  made 
the  example  of  the  hospital  qf  the  Holy  Ghost  of  that 
city  especially  forceful.  In  other  portions  of  France  it 
is  well  known  that  the  Sisters  of  the  Holy  Ghost  very 
early  established  separate  hospitals  from  those  founded 
by  the  Brothers  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  There  are  records 
of  such  separate  hospitals  entirely  under  the  control  of 
Sisters  in  Bar-Sur-Aube,  in  Neuf-Chateau,  and,  accord- 
ing to  Virchow,  at  many  other  places.  At  the  same  time, 
however,  there  still  continued  to  be  hospitals  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  as  at  Besancon,  where  the  Brothers  and  Sisters  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  had  their  institutions  in  common,  though 
there  was  a  distinct  separation  of  the  communities  and 
allotment  of  tasks.  The  Brothers  cared  rather  for  the 
surgical  cases,  while  the  care  of  the  children  and  the 
pregnant  women  was  confided  to  the  Sisters.  This  of 
itself  was  rather  an  advantage,  since  the  separation  of 
the  women  and  the  children  from  the  ordinary  hospital 
patients,  must  have  proved  an  important  preventive  of 
infection  and  an  ameliorating  factor  as  regards  that  hos- 
pital atmosphere  especially  likely  to  be  unfavorable  to 
these  delicate,  sensitive  cases.  We  know  now  what  hos- 
pitalism  means  for  them. 

That  the  influence  of  the  movement  initiated  by  Inno- 
cent III.  was  felt  even  in  distant  England  is  very  clear, 
from  the  fact  that  practically  all  of  the  famous  old  Brit- 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          255 

ish  hospitals  date  their  existence  as  institutions  for  the 
care  of  the  ailing  from  the  thirteenth  century.  The 
famous  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital  in  London  had  been 
a  priory  founded  at  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, which  took  care  of  the  poor  and  the  destitute  sick, 
but  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  it  became, 
in  imitation  of  the  Hospital  of  the  Holy  Spirit  at  Rome, 
frankly  a  hospital  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word.  St. 
Thomas's  Hospital,  which  continues  to  be  down  to  the 
present  time  one  of  the  great  medical  institutions  of 
London,  was  founded  by  Richard,  Prior  of  Bermondsey, 
in  1213.  Bethlehem,  or  as  the  name  was  softened  in  the 
English  speech  of  the  people,  Bedlam,  was  founded 
about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Originally 
it  was  a  general  hospital  for  the  care  of  the  sick  of  all 
kinds,  though  in  later  times  it  became,  as  its  name  has 
come  to  signify  in  modern  English,  a  place  exclusively 
for  the  care  of  the  insane.  Bedlam,  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  probably  also  in  the  later  years  of  the  thir- 
teenth, made  provision  for  a  certain  number  of  the  in- 
sane in  addition  to  other  patients,  so  that  it  presented 
the  accomplishment  of  that  desideratum  for  which  we 
are  striving  in  the  twentieth  century— a  city  general 
hospital  with  psychopathic  wards.  This  arrangement, 
as  we  have  said  in  the  chapter  on  the  Church  and  the 
Mentally  Afflicted,  has  many  advantages  over  the  special 
hospital  for  the  insane,  entrance  to  which,  as  a  rule,  re- 
quires tedious  formalities. 

Bridewell  and  Christ's  Hospital,  the  other  two  of  the 
institutions  long  known  as  the  five  royal  hospitals  of 
London,  were  either  actually  founded  or  received  a  great 
stimulus  and  a  thorough  reorganization  during  the  thir- 
teenth century.  In  the  succeeding  centuries  Bridewell 


256  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

ceased  to  be  a  hospital  and  became  a  prison,  while 
Christ's  Hospital,  though  retaining  its  name,  became  a 
school.  With  some  of  these  institutions  the  name  of 
Edward  VI.  has  become  associated,  but,  as  pointed  out 
by  Gairdner,  the  English  historical  writer,  without  any 
due  warrant.  Gairdner  says  in  his  History  of  the  Eng- 
lish Church  in  the  Sixteenth  Century,  "  Edward  has  left 
a  name  in  connection  with  charities  and  education  which 
critical  scholars  find  to  be  little  justified  by  fact."  The 
supposed  foundation  of  St.  Thomas's  Hospital,  as  he 
points  out,  was  only  the  re-establishment  of  this  insti- 
tution, "and  even  when  it  was  granted  by  Edward  to 
the  citizens  of  London,  it  was  not  without  their  paying 
for  it."  Many  institutions,  charitable  and  educational, 
had  been  destroyed  by  Henry  VIII. ,  and  the  crying  need 
for  them  became  so  great  under  Edward's  reign  that 
the  government  was  compelled  to  provide  for  their  re- 
establishment. 

It  is  no  wonder,  with  all  this  activity  of  the  hospital 
foundation  movement,  that  Virchow  should  have  been 
unstinted  in  his  praise  of  the  Pontiff  and  of  the  Church 
responsible  for  the  great  charity.  He  said  :  "  It  may  be 
recognized  and  admitted  that  it  was  reserved  for  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  above  all  for  Innocent  III. , 
not  only  to  open  the  bourse  of  Christian  charity  and 
mercy  in  all  its  fulness,  but  also  to  guide  the  life-giving 
stream  into  every  branch  of  human  life  in  an  ordered 
manner.  For  this  reason  alone  the  interest  in  this  man 
and  in  this  time  will  never  die  out." 

Even  this  was  not  all  that  he  felt  bound  to  say,  and  in 
his  admiration  he  quite  forgot  the  constant  opposition  he 
manifested  toward  the  Papacy  on  all  other  occasions. 
This  happened  to  be  the  one  feature  of  Papal  influence 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          257 

and  endeavor  that  he  had  investigated  most  thoroughly, 
and  one  is  tempted  to  wonder  if  like  investigation  in 
other  directions  would  not  have  shown  him  the  error  of 
prejudiced  views  he  harbored  with  regard  to  other 
phases  of  the  beneficent  influence  of  the  Popes  in  his- 
tory. More  knowledge  is  all  that  is  needed,  as  a  rule, 
to  overcome  all  the  anti-Papal  prejudices  founded  on 
supposed  historical  grounds. 

Indeed,  Virchow's  tribute  to  Pope  Innocent  III.  as  the 
initiator  of  all  this  humanitarian  work  is  so  frank  and 
outspoken  that,  coming  as  it  does  from  a  man  whose 
sympathies  with  the  Papacy  were  well  known  to  be  the 
slightest,  it  deserves  to  be  recalled  in  its  completeness, 
in  order  that  another  factor  for  the  vindication  of  Inno- 
cent's character  may  be  better  known.  The  great  pa- 
thologist said  :  "The  beginning  of  the  history  of  all  of 
these  German  hospitals  is  connected  with  the  name  of 
that  Pope  who  made  the  boldest  and  farthest-reaching 
attempt  to  gather  the  sum  of  human  interests  into  the 
organization  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The  hospitals  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  were  one  of  the  many  means  by  which 
Innocent  III.  thought  to  hold  humanity  to  the  Holy  See. 
And  surely  it  was  one  of  the  most  effective.  Was  it  not 
calculated  to  create  the  most  profound  impression  to  see 
how  the  mighty  Pope,  who  humbled  emperors  and  de- 
posed kings,  who  was  the  unrelenting  adversary  of  the 
Albigenses,  turned  his  eyes  sympathetically  upon  the 
poor  and  sick,  sought  the  helpless  and  the  neglected 
upon  the  streets,  and  saved  the  illegitimate  children 
from  death  in  the  waters  !  There  is  something  at  once 
conciliating  and  fascinating  in  the  fact,  that  at  the  very 
time  when  the  fourth  crusade  was  inaugurated  through 
his  influence,  the  thought  of  founding  a  great  organiza- 


258  THE   POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

tion  of  an  essentially  humane  character,  which  was 
eventually  to  extend  throughout  all  Christendom,  was 
also  taking  form  in  his  soul ;  and  that  in  the  same  year 
(1204)  in  which  the  new  Latin  Empire  was  founded  in 
Constantinople,  the  newly  erected  hospital  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  by  the  old  bridge  on  the  other  side  of  the  Tiber, 
was  blessed  and  dedicated  as  the  future  centre  of  this 
organization/' l 

The  quotation  from  Virchow  gives  a  good  and  quite 
comprehensive  idea  of  the  scope  of  these  institutions. 
The  ailing  of  all  kinds  were  received  beneath  their  hos- 
pitable roof.  In  many  cases  the  regulations  for  the  re- 
ception of  pregnant  women  and  for  the  care  of  the 
foundlings  are  still  extant,  besides  the  hospital  rules  for 
the  care  of  the  various  kinds  of  patients.  The  depart- 
ment set  aside  for  the  foundlings  was  in  most  places 
rather  an  allied  institution  than  an  integral  part  of  the 
hospital  itself.  While  these  were  called  findel  or  found- 
ling houses  in  Germany,  in  Italy  this  harsh  name  was 
not  used,  but  the  institutions  were  termed  hospitals  for 
the  innocents,  thus  emphasizing  the  most  pitiable  feat- 
ure of  the  cases  of  the  little  patients,  and  not  branding 
them  for  life  with  a  name  that  suggested  their  having 
been  abandoned  by  those  who  should  have  cared  for 
them. 

The  regulations  for  the  admission  and  care  of  patients 
are  interesting  as  showing  how  much  these  medieval  in- 
stitutions tried  to  fulfill  the  ideal  of  hospital  work.  The 
people  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  not  as  yet  suffered  all 

1  Virchow's  article  on  the  German  hospitals  is  to  be  found  in  the  second  volume  of 
his  collection  of  essays  on  Public  Medicine  and  the  History  of  Epidemics,  which  is,  un. 
fortunately,  not  translated  into  English,  so  far  as  1  know,  but  will  have  to  be  con- 
sulted in  the  original  Gesammelte  Abhandlungen  aus  dem  Gebiete  der  Oeffentlichen 
Medicin  und  der  Seuchenlehre  von  Rudolf  Virchow,  Berlin,  1879.  August  Hirschwald. 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          259 

the  disillusionments  that  come  from  the  abuse  of  charity 
at  the  hands  of  those  who  least  deserve  help,  and  be- 
sides, the  attendants  at  the  hospitals  were  expected  to 
do  their  work  for  its  own  sake  and  from  the  highest 
motives  of  Christian  benevolence  rather  than  for  any 
lesser  reward.  At  the  beginning,  at  least,  there  seems 
to  be  no  doubt  that  this  lofty  purpose  was  accomplished 
very  satisfactorily  ;  but  men  and  women  are  only  human, 
and  after  a  time  there  was  deterioration.  Even  Virchow, 
however,  was  so  struck  by  the  ideal  conditions  that  ex- 
isted in  these  early  hospitals  that  he  discussed  the  ne- 
cessity for  having  in  modern  times  hospital  attendants 
with  as  unselfish  motives  as  those  of  the  medieval  period. 
It  seems  worth  while  then  to  give  some  of  the  details  of 
this  supremely  Christian  management  of  hospital  work. 

In  an  article  on  the  medieval  hospitals  in  the  Dublin 
Review  for  October,  1903,  Elizabeth  Speakman  quotes 
from  the  statutes  of  various  hospitals  sufficient  to  show 
how  the  internal  government  of  these  charitable  institu- 
tions was  regulated.  There  was  always  a  porter  at  the 
main  door,  usually  one  of  the  Brothers  or  Sisters,  who 
had  the  power  to  receive  patients  applying  for  admis- 
sion. At  certain  places,  however,  it  seems  to  have  been 
necessary  to  inform  the  superior;  and  the  statutes  of 
the  French  Hospital  at  Angers  say,  that  the  prioress  is 
to  go  herself  without  delay  to  receive  patients  or  to  send 
one  of  the  Sisters  for  that  purpose,  "not  severe  or  hard, 
but  kind  of  countenance."  At  the  same  place  the  stat- 
utes say,  "the  number  of  the  sick  is  not  to  be  defined, 
for  the  house  is  theirs,  and  so  all  indifferently  shall  be 
received  as  far  as  the  resources  of  the  house  allow. " 

From  many  of  the  hospitals  members  of  the  commun- 
ity were  sent  out  from  day  to  day  to  find  out  if  there 


260  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

were  any  lying  sick  who  needed  care  and  who  should 
be  sent  to  the  hospital.  They  were  expected  also  to  pick 
up  any  of  the  infirm  whom  they  might  find  along  the 
streets  and  bring  them  to  the  hospital.  The  attitude 
which  the  religious  attendants  at  the  hospitals  were  to 
assume  toward  the  patients  upon  whom  they  wait  is 
clearly  stated.  In  nearly  all  of  the  French  hospitals  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  at  least,  the  statutes  in  this 
matter  do  not  differ  much  from  this  specimen : 
#-  ' '  When  the  patient  arrives  he  shall  be  received  thus  : 
First,  having  confessed  his  sins  to  the  priest,  he  shall 
be  communicated  religiously  and  afterward  be  carried 
to  bed  and  treated  there  as  our  Lord,  according  to  the 
resources  of  the  house ;  each  day,  before  the  repast  of 
the  brethren,  he  shall  be  given  food  with  charity,  and 
each  Sunday  the  epistle  and  gospel  shall  be  read  and 
aspersion  with  holy  water  made  with  procession/' 

As  is  noted  by  Miss  Speakman,  all  through  the  hos- 
pital statutes  of  these  times  the  name  of  Masters  or 
Lords  is  applied  to  the  patients.  The  expression  in  Old 
French  is  Les  Seignors  Malades.  The  ordinary  name 
for  hospital  was  Maison  Dieu,  which  has  been  well  trans- 
lated "  God's  Hostelry/'  It  is  evident,  then,  though 
the  origin  of  the  phrase  ''Our  Lords  the  Poor,"  as  ap- 
plied to  hospital  patients,  has  been  said  to  be  obscure, 
that  it  is  only  a  re-echo  of  the  scriptural  expression, 
"  Whatsoever  ye  shall  do,  even  to  the  least  of  these,  be- 
hold ye  do  it  unto  Me. "  A  quotation  which  was  empha- 
sized in  the  old  rule  of  St.  Benedict,  promulgated  for  the 
treatment  of  those  received  into  the  "hospitality  of  the 
Benedictine  monasteries,  ' '  All  guests  shall  be  received 
as  Christ,  who  Himself  has  said,  '  I  was  a  stranger  and 
ye  took  Me  in.'" 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          261 

In  modern  times,  the  necessity  for  providing  for  pa- 
tients whatever  within  reason  they  may  long  for  has 
often  been  insisted  on.  It  is  curiously  interesting  to  find 
a  striking  anticipation  of  this  very  modern  rule  in  the 
customs  of  these  old-time  hospitals.  As  a  result  of  the 
attitude  of  supreme  good  will  toward  patients,  there  is 
an  injunction  in  many  hospital  statutes,  that  whatever 
the  patient  may  desire,  if  it  can  be  obtained  and  is  not 
bad  for  him,  shall  be  given  to  him  until  he  is  restored  to 
health.  The  Knights  Hospitalers  of  St.  John  of  Jerusa- 
lem followed  the  injunction  so  carefully  and  endeavored 
to  satisfy  even  whims  of  their  patients  that  might  seem 
unreasonable  to  such  an  extent,  that  their  conduct  in 
the  matter  became  proverbial  and  gave  rise  to  at  least 
one  pretty  legend,  the  hero  of  which  is  no  less  a  person- 
age than  the  famous  Eastern  Sultan  of  the  later  Crusade 
period. 

"Saladin  desiring  to  prove  for  himself  this  reputed 
indulgence  of  the  knights  to  their  patients,  disguised 
himself  as  a  pilgrim  and  was  received  among  the  sick  in 
the  hospital  in  Jerusalem.  He  refused  all  food,  declar- 
ing that  there  was  only  one  thing  that  he  fancied,  and 
that  he  knew  they  would  not  give  him.  On  being 
pressed,  he  confessed  that  it  was  one  of  the  feet  of  the 
horse  of  the  Grand  Master.  The  latter,  on  being  ac- 
quainted with  this  fact,  ordered  that  the  noble  animal 
should  be  killed  and  the  sick  stranger's  desire  satisfied. 
Saladin  at  this  point,  thinking  the  experiment  had  gone 
far  enough,  declared  himself  taken  with  a  repugnance  to 
it,  so  the  animal  was  spared. ' ' 

Virchow  studied  very  faithfully  the  management  of 
these  medieval  hospitals,  and  was  evidently  quite  im- 
pressed with  the  success  with  which  difficulties  had  been 


262  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

met  and  overcome.  None  knew  better  than  he  all  the 
difficulties  there  were  in  hospital  management,  for  dur- 
ing nearly  fifty  years  he  had  been  identified  with  many 
hospitals,  from  city  charity  institutions  to  the  various 
kinds  needed  for  war  and  those  erected  in  connection 
with  universities  for  teaching  purposes.  He  had  very 
little  patience  with  religious  formula,  and  was  indeed  a 
typical  agnostic.  Notwithstanding  this,  he  has  been 
perfectly  frank  in  confessing  how  much  is  accomplished 
by  the  religious  management  of  the  hospitals,  and  even 
did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  if  hospitals  for  the  poor 
particularly,  are  to  be  successfully  managed,  there  must 
be  a  change  in  the  view-point  of  those  who  take  up  the 
work  of  hospital  nursing,  and  the  attendants  must  come 
from  better  social  classes  than  is  at  present  the  custom. 
(This  is  of  course  for  Germany. ) 

The  question  as  to  whether  secular  or  religious  man- 
agement of  hospitals  shall  prevail  has  not  been  as  yet 
absolutely  decided,  and  this  adds  to  the  value  of  Vir- 
chow's  opinion.  No  one  knew  better  than  he  of  the 
many  sacrifices  required  if  the  patients  are  to  be  prop- 
erly cared  for.  Himself,  as  I  have  said,  utterly  without 
religion,  it  is  curious  to  see  how  he  recognizes  the  bene- 
fit that  religious  motives  confer  upon  the  management 
of  a  hospital,  and  how  much  better  the  work  is  likely  to 
be  done  by  those  who  give  themselves  up  to  the  care  of 
the  sick  as  a  Christian  duty.  He  says  : 

"The  general  hospital  is  the  real  purpose  of  our  time, 
and  anyone  who  takes  up  service  in  it  must  give  himself 
up  to  it  from  the  purest  of  humanitarian  motives.  The 
hospital  attendant  must,  at  least  morally  and  spiritually, 
see  in  the  patient  only  the  helpless  and  suffering  man, 
his  brother  and  his  neighbor ;  and  in  order  to  be  able  to 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          263 

do  this  he  must  have  a  warm  heart,  an  earnest  devotion, 
and  a  true  sense  of  duty.  There  is  in  reality  scarcely 
any  human  occupation  that  brings  so  immediately  with 
it  its  own  reward,  or  in  which  the  feeling  of  personal 
contentment  comes  from  thorough  accomplishment  of 
purpose. 

"  But  so  far  as  the  accomplishment  of  the  task  set  one 
is  concerned,  the  attendant  in  the  hospital  has  ever  and 
anon  new  demands  made  upon  him  and  a  new  task  im- 
posed. One  patient  lies  next  the  other,  and  when  one 
departs  another  comes  in  his  place. 

"From  day  to  day,  from  week  to  week,  from  year  to 
year,  always  the  same  work,  over  and  over  again,  only 
forever  for  new  patients.  This  tires  out  the  hospital  at- 
tendant. Then  the  custom  of  seeing  suffering  weakens 
the  enthusiasm  and  lessens  the  sense  of  duty.  There  is 
need  of  a  special  stimulus  in  order  to  reawaken  the  old 
sympathy.  Whence  shall  this  be  obtained— from  relig- 
ion or  from  some  temporal  reward  ?  In  trying  to  solve 
this  problem  we  are  standing  before  the  most  difficult 
problem  of  modern  hospital  management.  Before  us  lie 
the  paths  of  religious  and  simple  care  for  the  sick.  We 
may  say  at  once  that  the  proper  solution  has  not  yet 
been  found. 

'  *  It  may  be  easy,  from  an  impartial  but  one-sided  view 
of  the  subject,  to  say  that  the  feeling  of  duty,  of  devo- 
tion, even  of  sacrifice,  is  by  no  means  necessarily  de- 
pendent on  the  hope  of  religious  reward,  nor  the  expec- 
tation of  material  remuneration.  Such  a  point  of  view, 
however,  I  may  say  at  once,  such  a  freedom  of  good 
will,  such  a  warmth  of  sympathy  from  purely  human 
motives  as  would  be  expected  in  these  conditions,  are 
only  to  be  found  in  very  unaccustomed  goodness  of  dis- 


264  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

position,  or  an  extent  of  ethical  education  such  as  cannot 
be  found  in  most  of  those  who  give  themselves  at  the 
present  time  to  the  services  of,  the  sick  in  the  hospitals. 
If  pure  humanity  is  to  be  a  motive,  then  other  circles  of 
society  must  be  induced  to  take  part  in  the  care  of  the 
sick.  Our  training  schools  for  nurses  must  teach  very 
differently  to  what  they  do  at  present,  if  the  care  of  the 
sick  in  municipal  hospitals  shall  compare  favorably  with 
that  given  them  in  religious  institutions.  Our  hospitals 
must  become  transformed  into  true  humanitarian  insti- 
tutions/' 

While  some  of  this  striking  opinion  of  Virchow's  was 
derived  from  personal  experience  with  hospitals  man- 
aged by  religious,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  such 
hospitals  are  rarer  in  Germany,  at  least  in  the  north, 
than  almost  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  His  opportun- 
ities then  were  limited,  and  undoubtedly  much  of  his 
favorable  persuasions  in  this  regard  was  founded  on  his 
investigation  of  conditions  as  he  had  learned  to  know 
them  in  the  old-time  hospitals  of  the  later  Middle  Ages. 
The  traditions  as  to  the  treatment  of  patients  in  these 
early  times  are  such  as  to  make  us  believe  that  hospital 
attendants  did  take  their  work  seriously  from  a  very 
lofty  motive,  and  that  while  medicine  and  surgery  were 
much  less  effective  than  in  more  modern  times,  the  ten- 
der care  of  patients  did  as  much  as  was  possible  to  make 
inevitable  suffering  more  bearable,  and  to  keep  the  sight 
of  painfully  approaching  death  from  being  a  source  of 
discouragement  and  even  of  despair. 

We  have  the  best  evidence,  that  of  a  contemporary,  as 
to  the  conditions  which  obtained  in  these  medieval  hos- 
pitals, and  the  dispositions  of  the  attendants  as  regards 
their  religious  duties  would  seem  to  be  an  unmistakable 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          265 

index  as  to  their  willingness  to  sacrifice  their  own  com- 
fort for  the  sake  of  the  patients.  The  well  known 
Jacques  de  Vitry,  who  had  been  Bishop  of  Acre  and 
afterwards  Cardinal,  and  whose  wide  travel  had  given 
him  many  opportunities  to  judge  for  himself,  said : 

' '  There  are  innumerable  congregations,  both  of  men 
and  women,  renouncing  the  world  and  living  regularly 
in  leper  houses  and  hospitals  of  the  poor,  humbly  and  de- 
voutly ministering  to  the  poor  and  the  infirm.  They  live 
according  to  the  rule  of  St.  Augustine,  without  property 
and  in  community  and  under  obedience  to  one  above 
them  ;  and  having  assumed  the  regular  habit,  they  prom- 
ise to  God  perpetual  continence.  The  men  and  women, 
with  all  reverence  and  chastity,  eat  and  sleep  apart. 
The  canonical  hours,  as  far  as  hospitality  and  the  care 
of  the  poor  of  Christ  allow,  by  day  and  night  they  at- 
tend. In  houses  where  there  is  a  large  congregation  of 
brethren  and  sisters,  they  congregate  frequently  in 
chapter  for  the  correction  of  faults  and  other  causes. 
Readings  from  Holy  Scriptures  are  frequently  made 
during  meals,  and  silence  is  maintained  during  meals  in 
the  refectory  and  other  fixed  places  and  at  certain  times, 
i  .  .  .  Their  chaplains,  ministering  in  spiritual  mat- 
ters with  all  humility  and  devotion  to  the  infirm,  instruct 
the  ignorant  in  the  word  of  divine  preaching,  console 
the  faint-hearted  and  weak,  and  exhort  them  to  patience 
and  to  correspond  to  the  action  of  grace.  They  celebrate 
divine  office  in  the  common  chapel  assiduously  by  day 
and  night,  so  that  the  sick  can  hear  from  their  beds. 
Confession  and  extreme  unction  and  the  other  sacra- 
ments they  administer  diligently  and  solicitously  to  the 
sick,  and  to  the  dead  they  give  due  burial.  These  min- 
isters of  Christ,  sober  and  sparing  to  themselves  and 


266  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

very  strict  and  severe  to  their  bodies,  overflowing  with 
charity  to  the  poor  and  infirm  and  ministering  with  ten- 
der heart  to  their  necessities  according  to  their  powers, 
are  all  the  more  lowly  in  the  House  of  God  as  they  were 
of  high  rank  in  the  world.  They  bear  for  Christ's  sake 
such  unclean  and  almost  intolerable  things,  that  I  do  not 
think  any  other  can  be  compared  to  this  martyrdom, 
holy  and  precious  in  the  sight  of  God." 

It  might  perhaps  be  thought  that  these  hospitals  of 
the  Middle  Ages  would  be  of  very  little  interest  to  the 
modern  student  of  things  social  and  medical  except  for 
the  fact,  surprising  enough  in  itself  at  this  time  of  sup- 
posed neglect  of  social  duties,  when  the  paternal  spirit 
of  the  municipality  is  presumed,  scarcely  to  have  devel- 
oped as  yet,  that  such  institutions  were  provided.  It 
would  ordinarily  be  assumed  that  they  were,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  time  as  regards 
the  influence  of  light  and  air  on  the  ailing,  dingy  and 
unventilated,  lacking  most  of  the  qualities  that  distin- 
guish our  modern  hospital.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, just  as  our  architects  go  back  to  the  Middle  Ages 
to  get  models  for  our  churches  and  municipal  buildings, 
and  even  our  millionaires'  palaces  and  public  institutions, 
they  also  find  that  in  the  matter  of  hospitals  much  valu- 
able guidance  is  to  be  obtained  from  what  was  accom- 
plished by  these  people  of  the  Middle  Ages,  of  whom  we 
ordinarily  think  so  little.  Mr.  Arthur  Dillon,  an  archi- 
tect, writing  in  the  "Mail  and  Express"  for  May  7th, 
1904,  described  the  hospital  founded  by  Marguerite  of 
Bourgogne,  the  sister  of  St.  Louis,  at  Tanierre  in  France 
in  1293.  It  consisted  of  a  ward,  a  building  attached  to 
it  by  a  covered  passage  in  which  Marguerite  herself 
lived  for  many  years,  and  separate  buildings  for  kitch- 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          267 

ens,  for  storage  of  provisions  and  for  the  lodging  of  the 
twenty  monks  and  nuns  who  had  charge  of  the  sick.  A 
feature  that  perhaps  we  would  not  admire  very  much, 
was  that  adjacent  to  the  buildings  there  was  a  cemetery. 
They  were  not  so  fearful  about  death  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
however,  as  we  are  apt  to  be  ;  and  who  shall  say  that  the 
contemplation  of  it  did  not  often  give  that  restful  sense 
of  submission  to  whatever  would  come,  that  sometimes 
means  so  much  in  serious  illness,  and  keeps  the  patient 
from  still  further  exhausting  vitality  by  worrying  as  to 
the  outcome  ?  The  medicine  was  stronger  than  our  de- 
generate generation  might  be  able  to  bear,  but  then  all 
their  medicines  were  apt  to  be  stronger  in  that  time. 

The  situation  of  the  hospital  might  well  be  thought 
ideal. .  The  princess  had  gardens  about  her  lodging,  and 
the  whole  property  was  surrounded  by  a  high  wall,  along 
which  flowed  the  branches  of  a  small  stream,  which 
doubtless  tempered  the  atmosphere  and  served  as  a  car- 
rier off  of  much  undesirable  material.  The  hospital 
ward  itself  was  55  feet  wide  and  270  feet  long  and  had 
a  high  arched  ceiling  of  wood.  It  was  lighted  by  large 
pointed  windows  high  up  in  the  walls.  At  the  level  of 
the  window-sills,  some  twelve  feet  from  the  floor,  a  nar- 
row gallery  ran  along  the  wall,  from  which  the  ventila- 
tion through  the  windows  might  be  readily  regulated 
and  on  which  convalescent  patients  might  walk  or  be 
seated  in  the  sunshine.  The  beds  were  placed  each  in  a 
little  room  formed  by  low  partitions.  Privacy  was  thus 
secured  much  better  than  in  the  modern  hospital  wards, 
and  as  there  were  only  forty  beds,  the  ventilation  was 
abundant. 

Mr.  Dillon,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  architect,  says 
of  it: 


268  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

"It  was  an  admirable  hospital  in  every  way,  and  it  is 
doubtful  if  we  to-day  surpass  it.  It  was  isolated,  the 
ward  was  separated  from  the  other  buildings,  it  had  the 
advantage  we  so  often  lose  of  being  but  one  story  high, 
and  more  space  was  given  to  each  patient  than  we  can 
now  afford. 

"The  ventilation  by  the  great  windows  and  ventila- 
tors in  the  ceiling  was  excellent ;  is  was  cheerfully 
lighted,  and  the  arrangement  of  the  gallery  shielded 
the  patients  from  dazzling  light  and  from  draughts  from 
the  windows  and  afforded  an  easy  means  of  supervision, 
while  the  division  by  the  roofless,  low  partitions  isolated 
the  sick  and  obviated  the  depression  that  comes  from 
the  sight  of  others  in  pain.  . 

"It  was,  moreover,  in  great  contrast  to  the  cheerless 
white  wards  of  to-day.  The  vaulted  ceiling  was  very 
beautiful ;  the  woodwork  was  richly  carved,  and  the 
great  windows  over  the  altars  were  filled  with  colored 
glass.  Altogether,  it  was  one  of  the  best  examples  of 
the  best  period  of  Gothic  architecture." 

Probably  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  early  his- 
tory of  the  hospital  movement  is  the  spirit  of  evolution 
to  meet  growing  needs  and  developing  ideals  which  it 
manifested.  In  spite  of  the  judicious  consideration  de- 
voted to  the  establishment  of  the  original  hospital  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  at  Rome,  it  was  not  long  before  it  proved 
inadequate  for  its  purpose.  One  of  the  eminently  note- 
worthy things  that  constantly  repeat  themselves  in  his- 
tory is  that  where  a  social  need  is  discovered  and  a 
remedy  found  for  it,  it  is  not  long  before  the  need  in- 
creases to  such  a  degree  as  to  outstrip  the  original  rem- 
edy. Before  half  a  century  had  passed  Innocent's  suc- 
cessors declared  in  unmistakable  terms  that  the  original 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          269 

hospital  was  entirely  too  cramped  and  crowded.  Ac- 
cordingly, a  much  larger  and  handsomer  building  was 
erected.  Visitors  to  Rome  admired  the  new  building, 
and  it  proved  an  incentive  for  larger  plans  for  hospitals 
in  other  important  cities.  At  the  end  of  the  thirteenth 
and  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  centuries  some 
really  imposing  edifices  were  erected  as  hospitals,  espe- 
cially in  towns  of  Italy.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the 
artistic  Italian  mind  seems  to  have  realized  the  truth, 
which  has  only  come  to  be  recognized  again  in  quite  re- 
cent times,  that  a  hospital  building  should  be  as  fine  a 
structure  as  the  finances  of  a  city  will  permit.  It  was 
felt  that  nothing  was  too  good  for  the  ailing  citizens  and 
that  the  city  honored  itself  by  making  its  public  build- 
ings a^ monument  of  artistic  purpose.  The  earliest  ex- 
ample of  how  well  this  was  accomplished  is  to  be  found 
at  Siena,  whose  hospital  continues  to  be  down  to  the 
present  time  one  of  the  most  interesting  objects  of  ad- 
miration for  the  visitor.  Portions  of  this  Siena  hospital 
as  it  now  exists  were  built  as  early  as  the  last  decade  of 
the  thirteenth  and  the  first  decade  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  It  was  during  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth 
century  that  it  was  resolved  to  make  the  building  as 
beautiful  in  the  interior  by  means  of  great  artistic  dec- 
oration and  frescoes  as  it  was  imposing  on  the  exterior. 
It  was  not  for  a  century  and  a  half  later  that  Milan's 
magnificent  hospital  took  on  its  modern  shape,  though 
the  city  had  been  always  famous  for  its  care  of  the  sick. 
The  hospital  movement  of  the  thirteenth  century,  how- 
ever, culminated  in  monuments  as  famous  and  as  archi- 
tecturally beautiful  as  any  that  have  been  built  in  recent 
years. 
To  take,  for  example,  that  of  Siena,  a  goo0  descrip- 


270  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

tion  of  which  may  be  found  in  The  Story  of  Siena,  by  G. 
Gardner.  (Dent,  London,  1902. )  The  buildings  occupy 
the  whole  side  of  the  Piazzo  del  Duomo,  directly  opposite 
the  facade.  They  constitute  almost  as  striking  a  bit  of 
architecture  as  any  edifice  of  the  period,  and  contain  a 
magnificent  set  of  frescoes,  some  of  them  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  many  others  of  later  centuries.  The 
Siena  school  of  painting  in  the  fourteenth  century  was 
doing  some  of  the  best  art  work  of  the  time,  and  as  a 
consequence  the  hospital  has  been  of  perennial  inter- 
est. Artists  and  amateurs  and  dilettante  visitors  have 
gladly  spent  time  in  studying  and  admiring  its  artistic 
treasures  at  nearly  all  times,  but  more  especially  in  re- 
cent years.  The  sympathetic  admiration  for  its  art  has 
led  to  a  better  appreciation  of  the  motives  of  the  gener- 
ation that  built  it,  than  even  the  sublime  humanitarian 
purpose  which  dictated  it  or  the  work  for  suffering  hu- 
manity which  it  accomplished. 

It  is  typical  of  the  times  in  many  ways.  We  have  only 
just  begun  again  in  very  modern  times,  as  we  have  al- 
ready said,  to  consider  that  some  of  the  best  of  our 
buildings  in  any  large  city  should  be  those  intended  for 
the  sick  and  the  poor  of  the  community.  The  city  must 
respond  nobly  to  its  civic  duties.  The  idea,  however, 
came  so  naturally  to  the  medieval  mind  that  apparently 
there  was  no  question  about  it.  Only  in  very  recent 
years  has  come  the  additional  thought  that  these  build- 
ings must  be  appropriately  decorated,  and  that  the  work 
of  the  greatest  artists  of  the  time  can  have  no  better 
place  for  its  display  than  the  walls  of  a  hospital  or  a 
great  charitable  institution.  Bartolo's  frescoes,  on  the 
walls  of  the  hospital  at  Siena,  tell  the  story  of  the  work 
that  was  done  for  foundlings  and  pilgrims  as  well  as  for 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          271 

the  sick  in  the  early  days  of  its  establishment.  The 
first  picture  of  the  series  represents  the  baptism  of  the 
children  that  had  been  picked  up  and  brought  to  the 
hospital. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  times,  too,  that  one  of  the 
greatest  pictures  on  the  hospital  walls  is  not  something 
that  makes  for  the  glory  of  the  trustees  or  the  founders, 
nor  that  is  some  fancy  of  the  painter,  some  study  of 
myth  or  landscape,  in  which  he  might  have  been  es- 
pecially interested.  Probably  the  masterpiece  of  the 
old  painters  is  the  Scala  del  Paradiso  (the  stairs  to 
heaven),  by  Vecchietta.  The  picture  was  evidently 
painted  for  the  department  of  the  foundlings,  and  its 
subject  is  the  ascent  of  these  little  children  to  heaven 
and  their  welcome  by  the  angels  and  saints  and  by  the 
Heavenly  Father.  A  more  inspiring  vision  to  be  im- 
pressed upon  the  minds  of  these  growing  children  who 
had  been  abandoned  by  their  own,  and  who  must  have 
felt  all  of  their  loneliness  in  spite  of  their  favorable  sur- 
roundings, could  scarcely  have  been  imagined. 

The  dedication  of  the  hospital  is  expressed  in  terms 
very  typical  of  the  Middle  Ages,  or  as  they  might  better 
be  called,  "The  Ages  of  Faith. "  It  reminds  one  of  the 
formal  terms  of  wills,  as  they  used  to  be  worded  in 
olden  times:  "In  the  Name  of  God,  Amen.  To  the 
honor,  praise  and  reverence  of  God  and  of  His  Mother, 
Madonna,  Holy  Mary  Virgin,  and  of  all  the  saints  of 
God,  and  to  the  honor  and  exaltation  of  Holy  Mother 
Church  and  of  the  Commune  and  of  the  people  of  the 
city  of  Siena,  and  to  its  good  and  pacific  state,  and  to 
the  increase  of  the  Hospital  of  Madonna,  Holy  Mary 
Virgin,  of  Siena,  which  is  placed  in  front  of  the  chief 
church  of  the  city,  and  to  the  recreation  of  the  sick  and 


272  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

the  foundlings  of  the  said  hospital."  This  dedication  is 
to  be  found  at  the  beginning  of  the  statutes  of  the  hos- 
pital as  they  were  formulated  in  1305. 

The  hospital  did  excellent  service,  and  most  of  the 
original  building  has  remained  down  to  our  own  day.  It 
has  seen  many  times  of  trial  for  the  citizens  of  Siena, 
and  has  proved  its  usefulness.  Twice  during  the  four- 
teenth century  it  saw  the  coming  of  the  Black  Death, 
and  its  wards  and  corridors  and  every  room  were  filled 
with  the  dead  and  the  dying.  During  the  fourteenth 
century  St.  Catherine  of  Siena  spent  much  of  her  time 
in  the  hospital,  and  it  was  her  work  here  that  gave  her 
the  glorious  prestige  that  came  so  unlocked  for.  The 
special  confraternity  with  which  she  was  associated  met 
in  one  of  the  smaller  rooms  of  the  hospital.  Attached 
to  the  hospital  there  was  a  special  house  for  lepers,  and 
this  was  one  of  the  favorite  places  for  St.  Catherine's 
visitations.  It  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  she  was,  at 
the  beginning  at  least,  very  much  opposed  by  her  family 
in  her  choice  of  such  an  occupation  as  this  personal  de- 
votion to  the  poor  and  the  sick.  In  reading  the  story, 
one  is  reminded  of  the  opposition  that  is  sometimes 
evoked  at  the  present  time  when  young  women  feel  the 
necessity  for  some  occupation  other  than  so-called  social 
duties,  and  take  to  slum  visiting,  or  the  care  of  the  cancer 
poor,  or  some  other  form  of  practical  aid  for  the  needy, 
apart  from  the  giving  of  money,  or  of  doing  a  little  sew- 
ing in  a  Lenten  class,  supposed  to  be  the  limit  of  their 
charitable  work  in  their  special  social  circle. 

It  is  of  curious  interest,  though  not  surprising,  to  find 
that  in  the  midst  of  the  organization  of  new  hospitals 
and  reorganization  of  old  hospital  foundations  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  attempts  were  made  to  correct 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          273 

abuses  which  still  continue  to  be  some  of  the  thorny 
problems  of  hospital  management.  For  instance,  the 
danger  was  recognized  of  having  the  expenses  of  ad- 
ministration outrun  those  of  the  hospital  proper,  and  of 
having  the  number  of  attendants,  or  at  least  of  persons 
living  upon  the  hospital  revenues,  greater  than  was  ab- 
solutely needed  for  the  care  of  patients.  There  are 
various  Papal  decrees  and  decisions  of  diocesan  synods 
in  this  matter.  Pope  Honorius  III.,  who  occupied  the 
Papal  See  from  1216  to  1227,  and  must  be  considered  as 
a  very  worthy  successor  of  the  first  great  Pope  of  the 
century,  Innocent  III.,  in  approving  the  union  of  two 
hospital  foundations  at  Ghent,  required  that  only  a  cer- 
tain limited  number  of  Brothers  and  Sisters  for  nursing 
purposes  should  be  received,  in  order  that  the  commun- 
ity expenses  proper  might  not  impair  to  too  great  a  de- 
gree the  resources  of  the  hospital  for  its  real  purpose  of 
taking  care  of  patients.  Previously,  he  had  insisted  by 
a  decree  that  the  number  of  Brothers  and  Sisters  in  the 
hospital  community  at  Louvain  should  not  exceed  the 
proportion  of  more  than  one  to  nine  of  the  patients. 
Synodal  decrees  in  various  bishoprics  allowed  only  board 
and  clothing,  but  nothing  more,  to  attendants  in  hos- 
pitals. In  the  thirteenth  century  the  personal  satisfac- 
tion of  accomplishing  a  charitable  work  in  attendance 
upon  the  sick  was  expected  to  make  up  for  any  further 
remuneration. 

The  other  serious  problem  of  hospital  management 
was  to  keep  those  not  really  suffering  from  serious  dis- 
ease, malingerers  of  various  kinds,  from  occupying  beds 
and  claiming  attention,  to  the  deprivation  of  those  who 
were  genuinely  ill.  Various  regulations  were  made 
looking  to  the  careful  examinations  of  such  persons, 


274  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

though  in  most  places  with  the  affirmation  of  a  standing 
rule,  that  all  those  complaining  of  illness  were  to  be  re- 
ceived into  the  hospital  for  at  least  one  day,  until  their 
cases  could  be  examined  with  sufficient  care  to  decide 
how  much  of  reality  and  how  much  of  simulation  there 
might  be  in  their  pretended  symptoms.  The  tramp,  of 
course,  has  always  been  in  the  world,  and  probably  al- 
ways will  be,  and  so  what  are  called  the  sturdy  va- 
grants (validi  vagrantes)  received  the  special  attention 
of  those  wishing  to  eliminate  hospital  abuses,  and  vari- 
ous decrees  were  made  in  order  to  prevent  them  from  re- 
ceiving sustenance  from  the  hospitals,  or  in  any  other  way 
abusing  the  privileges  of  these  charitable  institutions. 

A  hospital  movement,  quite  distinct  from  that  of  In- 
nocent III.,  which  attracted  so  much  attention  shortly 
after  the  general  hospital  became  common  as  to  deserve 
particular  consideration,  was  the  erection  of  the  lepro- 
series  or  special  institutions  for  the  care  of  lepers. 
Leprosy  had  become  quite  common  in  Europe  during  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  the  continued  contact  of  the  West 
with  the  East  during  the  crusades  had  brought  about  a 
notable  increase  of  the  disease.  It  is  not  definitely 
known  how  much  of  what  was  called  leprosy  at  that  time, 
really  belonged  to  the  specific  disease  now  known  as 
lepra.  There  is  no  doubt  that  many  affections,  which 
have  since  come  to  be  considered  as  quite  harmless  and 
non-contagious,  were  included  under  the  designation 
leprosy  by  the  populace  and  even  physicians  incapable 
as  yet  of  making  a  proper  differential  diagnosis.  Prob- 
ably severe  cases  of  eczema  and  other  chronic  skin  dis- 
eases, especially  when  complicated  by  the  results  of 
wrongly  directed  treatment  or  of  lack  of  cleansing,  were 
not  infrequently  pronounced  to  be  true  leprosy. 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          275 

There  is  no  doubt  at  all,  however,  of  the  occurrence 
of  real  leprosy  in  many  of  the  towns  of  the  West  from 
the  twelfth  to  the  fifteenth  centuries,  and  the  erection 
of  these  hospitals  proved  the  best  possible  prophylatic 
against  the  further  spread  of  the  disease.  Leprosy  is 
contagious,  but  only  mildly  so.  Years  of  intimate  asso- 
ciation with  a  leper  may,  and  usually  do,  bring  about  the 
communication  of  the  disease  to  those  around  them, 
especially  if  they  do  not  exercise  rather  carefully,  cer- 
tain precise  precautions  as  to  cleanliness  after  personal 
contact  or  after  the  handling  of  things  which  have  previ- 
ously been  in  the  leper's  possession.  As  the  result  of 
the  existence  of  these  houses  of  segregation,  leprosy 
disappeared  during  the  course  of  the  next  three  centur- 
ies, and  thus  a  great  hygienic  triumph  was  obtained  by 
sanitary  regulation. 

This  successful  sanitary  and  hygienic  work,  which 
brought  about  practically  the  complete  obliteration  of 
leprosy  in  the  Middle  Ages,  furnished  the  first  example 
of  the  possibility  of  eradicating  a  disease  that  has  once 
become  a  serious  scourge  to  mankind.  That  this  should 
have  been  accomplished  by  a  movement  that  had  its 
greatest  source  in  the  thirteenth  century  is  all  the  more 
surprising,  since  we  are  usually  accustomed  to  think  of 
the  people  of  the  times  as  sadly  lacking  in  any  interest 
in  sanitary  matters.  The  role  of  the  Popes  in  the  mat- 
ter is  another  striking  feature  well  worthy  of  note.  The 
significance  of  the  success  of  this  segregation  method 
was  lost  upon  men  down  almost  to  our  own  time.  This 
was  unfortunately  because  it  was  considered  that  most 
of  the  epidemic  diseases  were  conveyed  by  the  air.  They 
were  thought  infectious  and  due  to  a  climatic  condition 
rather  than  contagious,  that  is,  conveyed  by  actual  con- 


276  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

tact  with  the  person  having  the  disease  or  something 
that  had  touched  him,  which  is  the  view  now  held. 
With  the  beginning  of  the  crusade  against  tuberculosis 
in  the  later  nineteenth  century,  however,  the  most  en- 
couraging factor  for  those  engaged  in  it  was  the  history 
of  the  success  of  segregation  methods  and  careful  pre- 
vention of  the  spread  of  the  disease,  which  had  been 
pursued  against  leprosy.  In  a  word,  the  lessons  in 
sanitation  and  prophylaxis  of  the  thirteenth  century  are 
only  now  bearing  fruit  because  the  intervening  centuries 
did  not  have  sufficient  knowledge  to  realize  their  import 
and  take  advantage  of  them. 

Pope  Innocent  III.  was  not  the  only  occupant  of  the 
Papal  throne  whose  name  deserves  to  be  remembered 
with  benedictions  in  connection  with  the  hospital  move- 
ment of  the  thirteenth  century.  His  successor  took  up 
the  work  of  encouragement  where  Innocent  had  left  it 
at  his  death,  and  did  much  to  bring  about  the  successful 
accomplishment  of  his  intentions  in  the  ever  wider 
spheres.  Honorius  III.  is  distinguished  by  having  made 
into  an  order  the  Antonine  Congregation  of  Vienna, 
which  was  especially  devoted  to  the  care  of  patients 
suffering  from  the  ''holy  fire  "  and  from  various  mutila- 
tions. The  disease  known  as  the  holy  fire  seems  to  have 
been  what  is  called  in  modern  times  erysipelas.  During 
the  Middle  Ages  it  received  various  titles,  such  as  St. 
Anthony's  fire,  St.  Francis's  fire,  and  the  like,  the  latter 
part  of  the  designation  evidently  being  due  to  the  strik- 
ing redness  which  characterizes  the  disease,  and  which 
can  be  compared  to  nothing  better  than  the  intense  ery- 
thema consequent  upon  a  rather  severe  burn.  This  af- 
fection was  much  more  common  in  the  Middle  Ages  than 
in  later  times,  though  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  its 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          277 

disappearance  has  come  mainly  in  the  last  twenty-five 
years.  It  is  now  known  to  be  a  contagious  disease,  and 
indeed,  as  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  pointed  out  over  half 
a.  century  ago,  may  readily  be  carried  from  place  to 
place  by  the  physician  in  attendance.  It  does  not  al- 
ways manifest  itself  as  erysipelas  when  thus  carried, 
however,  and  the  merit  of  Dr.  Holmes' s  work  was  in 
pointing  out  the  fact  that  physicians  who  attended  pa- 
tients suffering  from  erysipelas  and  then  waited  on  ob- 
stetrical cases,  were  especially  likely  to  carry  the  affec- 
tion, which  manifested  itself  as  puerperal  fever.  A 
number  of  cases  of  this  kind  were  reported  and  dis- 
cussed by  him,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  his  warning 
served  to  save  many  precious  lives. 

Of  course  nothing  of  this  was  known  in  the  thirteenth 
century ;  yet  the  encouragement  given  to  this  religious 
order  which  devoted  itself  practically  exclusively  to  the 
care  in  special  hospitals  of  erysipelas,  must  have  had 
no  little  effect  in  bringing  about  a  limitation  of  the 
spread  of  the  disease.  In  such  hospitals  patients  were 
not  likely  to  come  in  contact  with  many  persons,  and 
consequently  the  contagion-radius  of  the  disease  was 
limited.  In  our  own  time,  immediate  segregation  of 
cases  when  discovered  has  practically  eradicated  it,  so 
that  many  a  young  physician,  even  though  ten  years  in 
practice,  has  never  seen  a  case  of  it.  It  was  so  common 
during  the  Civil  War  and  for  half  a  century  before  that 
here  in  America,  that  there  were  frequent  epidemics  of 
it  in  hospitals,  and  it  was  generally  recognized  that  the 
disease  was  so  contagious,  that  when  it  once  gained  a 
foothold  in  a  hospital  ward  nearly  every  patient  suffer- 
ing from  an  open  wound  was  likely  to  be  affected  by  it. 

It  is  interesting  then  to  learn  that  these  people  of  the 


278  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Middle  Ages  attempted  to  control  the  disease  by  erect- 
ing special  hospitals  for  it,  though  unfortunately  we  are 
not  in  a  position  to  know  just  how  much  was  accom- 
plished by  these  means.  A  congregation  devoted  to  the 
special  care  of  the  disease  had  been  organized,  as  we 
have  said,  early  in  the  thirteenth  century.  At  the  end 
of  this  century  this  was  given  the  full  weight  of  his 
amplest  approval  by  Pope  Boniface  VIII. ,  who  conferred 
on  it  the  privilege  of  having  priests  among  its  members 
It  will  be  remembered  that  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  is  said 
to  have  issued  the  bull  which  forbade  the  practice  of 
dissection.  That  bull  only  regulated,  as  I  have  shown, 
the  abuse  which  had  sprung  up  of  dismembering  bodies 
and  boiling  them  in  order  to  be  able  to  carry  them  to  a 
distance  for  burial,  which  was  in  itself  an  excellent 
hygienic  measure.  His  encouragement  of  the  special  re- 
ligious order  for  the  care  of  erysipelas  must  be  set  down 
to  his  credit  as  another  sanitary  benefit  conferred  on  his 
generation. 

Many  orders  for  the  care  of  special  needs  of  humanity 
were  established  during  the  thirteenth  century.  It  is 
from  this  period  that  most  of  the  religious  habits  worn 
by  women  originate.  They  used  to  be  considered  rather 
cumbersome  for  such  a  serious  work  as  the  nursing  and 
care  of  the  sick,  but  in  recent  years  quite  a  different  view 
has  been  taken.  The  covering  of  the  head,  for  instance, 
and  the  shearing  of  the  hair  must  have  been  of  distinct 
value  in  preventing  the  communication  of  contagious  dis- 
eases. There  has  been  a  curious  assimilation  in  the  last 
few  years  of  the  dress  required  to  be  worn  by  nurses  in 
operating  rooms  to  that  worn  by  most  of  the  religious 
communities.  The  head  must  be  completely  covered  and 
the  garments  worn  are  of  material  that  can  be  washed. 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  CITY  HOSPITALS          279 

It  will  be  recalled  that  the  head-dress  of  religious  being1, 
as  a  rule,  of  white,  on  which  the  slightest  speck  shows, 
must  be  renewed  frequently,  and  therefore  must  be  kept 
in  a  condition  of  what  is  practically  surgical  cleanliness. 
While  this  was  not  at  all  the  intention  of  those  who 
adopted  the  particular  style  of  head-dress  worn  by  re- 
ligious, yet  their  choice  has  proved,  in  what  may  well 
be  considered  a  Providential  way,  an  excellent  protec- 
tive for  the  patients  on  whom  they  waited,  against  cer- 
tain dangers  that  would  inevitably  have  been  present, 
if  their  dress  had  been  the  ordinary  one  of  the  women 
of  their  class,  during  these  many  centuries  of  hospital 
nursing  by  religious  women. 

In  a  word,  then,  all  the  features  which  characterize 
our  modern  hospitals,  found  a  place  in  the  old-time  in- 
stitutions for  the  care  of  the  ailing,  which  we  owe  to  the 
initiative  of  the  Church  and  religious  orders,  and  above 
all,  the  Popes.  While  we  are  accustomed  to  hear  these 
old-time  institutions  spoken  of  slightingly,  that  is  be- 
cause our  knowledge  of  them  was  not  as  detailed  as  it 
should  be,  until  the  recent  interest  in  things  medieval 
revealed  many  details  previously  misunderstood.  The 
hospitals  of  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  were  much  better  than  those  of  subsequent 
centuries  down  practically  to  our  own  time.  The  reason 
for  this  decadence  is  rather  complex,  but  it  evidently  oc- 
curred in  spite  of  the  Church  and  the  Popes.  Much  of 
it  was  due  to  the  fact  that,  particularly  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  the  political  governments  in- 
terfered in  the  work  of  charity  and  hospital  manage- 
ment, and  always  to  the  detriment  of  it.  The  greatest 
triumph  of  the  Church  during  the  earlier  centuries  is 
to  be  found  in  the  magnificent  organization  of  the  hos- 


280  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

pital  system  and  the  anticipation  of  so  many  things  in 
the  organization  of  hospital  work,  the  care  of  patients 
and  even  the  prevention  of  contagious  disease,  that  we 
are  apt  to  think  of  as  essentially  modern. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EXPERIMENTAL 
METHOD. 

There  is  a  very  generally  accepted  false  impression 
with  regard  to  the  attitude  maintained  by  the  Church 
during  the  Middle  Ages,  especially  toward  what  is  known 
as  the  experimental  method  in  the  gaining  of  knowledge, 
or  as  we  would  now  say,  in  the  study  of  science.  It  is 
commonly  supposed  that  at  least  before  the  sixteenth 
century,  though  of  course  in  modern  times  it  has  had  to 
change  its  attitude  to  accord  with  the  advances  of  modern 
science,  the  Church  was  decidedly  opposed  to  the  experi- 
mental method,  and  that  the  great  ecclesiastical  schol- 
ars of  the  wonderful  period  of  the  rise  of  the  univer- 
sities were  all  absolute  in  their  confidence  in  authority 
and  their  dependence  on  the  deductive  method  as  the 
only  means  of  arriving  at  truth.  This  widespread  false 
impression  owes  its  existence  and  persistence  to  many 
causes. 

It  is  supposed  by  many  of  those  outside  the  Church  that 
there  is  a  distinct  incompatibility  between  the  state  of 
mind  which  accepts  things  on  faith  and  that  other  in- 
tellectual attitude  which  leads  man  to  doubt  about  his 
knowledge  and  consequently  to  inquire.  This  doubting 
frame  of  mind,  which  is  readily  recognized  to  be  abso- 
lutely necessary  for  the  proper  pursuit  of  experimental 
science,  is  supposed  quite  to  preclude  the  idea  of  the 
peaceful  settlement  of  the  doubts  that  assail  men's  minds 
as  to  the  significance  of  life,  of  the  relation  of  man  to 
man  and  to  his  Creator,  and  the  hereafter,  which  comes 

(281) 


282  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

with  the  acceptance  of  what  revelation  has  to  say  on 
these  subjects.  Somehow,  it  is  assumed  by  many 
people  that  there  is  something  mutually  and  essentially 
repellent  in  these  two  forms  of  assent.  If  a  man  is 
ready  to  accept  certain  propositions  on  authority  and 
without  being  able  to  understand  them,  and  still  more, 
if  he  accept  them,  realizing  that  he  cannot  understand 
them,  it  is  considered  to  be  impossible  for  him  to  be 
able  to  assume  such  a  mental  attitude  towards  science 
as  would  make  him  an  original  investigator. 

It  is  almost  needless  to  say  to  anyone  who  knows  any- 
thing about  the  history  of  modern  science— even  nine- 
teenth century  science,  that  there  is  absolutely  no  foun- 
dation for  this  prejudice.  Most  of  our  greatest  investi- 
gators even  in  nineteenth  century  science  have  been 
faithful  believers  not  only  in  the  ordinary  religious 
truths,  in  a  Providence,  in  a  hereafter,  and  in  this  life 
as  a  preparation  for  another,  but  also  in  the  great  mys- 
teries of  revelation.  I  have  shown  this  amply  even  with 
regard  to  what  is  usually  considered  so  unorthodox  a 
science  as  medicine,  in  my  volume  on  the  Makers  of 
Modern  Medicine.  Most  of  the  men  who  did  the  great 
original,  work  in  last  century  medicine  were  Catholics. 
The  same  thing  is  true  for  electricity,  for  example.  All 
the  men  after  whom  modes  and  units  of  electricity  are 
named— Gal vani,  Volta,  Coulomb,  Ampere,  Ohm— were 
not  only  members  of  the  Church,  but  what  would  be 
even  called  devout  Catholics. 

A  second  and  almost  as  important  a  reason  for  the 
superstition— for  it  is  a  supposed  truth  accepted  without 
good  reasons  therefor— that  somehow  the  Church  was 
opposed  to  the  inductive  or  experimental  method,  is  the 
persistent  belief  which,  in  spite  of  frequent  contradic- 


EXPERIMENTAL    METHOD  283 

tions,  remains  in  the  minds  of  so  many  scientists,  that 
the  inductive  or  experimental  method  was  introduced  to 
the  world  by  Francis  Bacon,  the  English  philosopher, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Bacon 
himself  was  a  Protestant ;  he  did  not  do  his  writing 
until  the  reformation  so-called  had  been  at  work  in 
Europe  for  nearly  a  century,  and  somehow  it  is  supposed 
that  these  facts  are  linked  together  as  causes  and  effects. 
The  reason  why  such  a  formulation  of  the  inductive 
method  had  not  come  before  was  because  this  was  for- 
bidden ground !  Nothing  could  be  less  true  than  that 
Lord  Bacon  had  any  serious  influence  in  bringing  about 
the  introduction  of  the  inductive  method  into  science. 
At  most  he  was  a  chronicler  of  tendencies  that  he  saw 
in  the  science  of  his  day.  It  is  true  that  his  writings 
served  to  give  a  certain  popular  vogue  to  the  inductive 
method,  or  rather  a  certain  exaggerated  notion  of  the 
import  of  experiment  to  those  who  were  not  themselves 
scientists.  Bacon  was  a  popular  writer  on  science,  not 
an  original  thinker  or  worker  in  the  experimental 
sciences.  Popularizers  in  science,  alas !  have  from 
Amerigo  Vespucci  down  reaped  the  rewards  due  to  the 
real  discoverers. 

Induction  in  the  genuine  significance  of  the  word  had 
been  recognized  in  the  world  long  before  Bacon's  time 
and  been  used  to  much  better  effect  than  he  was  able  to 
apply  it.  Personally,  I  have  always  felt  that  he  has 
almost  less  right  to  all  the  praise  that  has  been  bestowed 
on  him  for  what  he  is  supposed  to  have  done  for  science, 
than  he  has  for  any  addition  to  his  reputation  because  of 
the  attribution  to  him  by  so  many  fanatics  of  the  author- 
ship of  Shakespeare's  plays.  It  is  rather  difficult  to 
understand  how  his  reputation  ever  came  about.  Lord 


284  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Macaulay  is  much  more  responsible  for  it  than  is  usually 
thought ;  his  brilliancy  often  overreached  itself  or  went 
far  beyond  truth  ;  his  favorite  geese  were  nearly  always 
swans,  in  his  eyes. 

De  Maistre,  in  his  review  of  Bacon's  Novum  Organum, 
points  out  that  this  work  is  replete  with  prejudices  ;  that 
Bacon  makes  glaring  blunders  in  astronomy,  in  logic,  in 
metaphysics,  in  physics,  in  natural  history,  and  fills  the 
pages  of  his  work  with  childish  observations,  trifling  ex- 
periments, and  ridiculous  explanations.  Our  own  Pro- 
fessor Draper,  in  his  Intellectual  Development  of 
Europe,  has  been  even  more  severe,  and  has  especially 
pointed  out  that  Bacon  never  received  the  Copernican 
System,  but  "with  the  audacity  of  ignorance  he  pre- 
sumed to  criticise  what  he  did  not  understand,  and  with 
a  superb  conceit  disparaged  the  great  Copernicus."  — 
"The  more  closely  we  examine  the  writings  of  Lord 
Bacon,"  he  says  farther  on,  "the  more  unworthy  does 
he  seem  to  have  been  of  the  great  reputation  which  has 
been  awarded  to  him.  .  .  The  popular  delusion,  to 
which  he  owes  so  much,  originated  at  a  time  when  the 
history  of  science  was  unknown.  This  boasted  founder 
of  a  new  philosophy  could  not  comprehend  and  would 
not  accept  the  greatest  of  all  scientific  discoveries  when 
it  was  plainly  set  before  his  eyes." 

As  a  student  of  the  history  of  medicine,  it  has  always 
been  especially  irritating  to  me  to  hear  Francis  Bacon's 
name  heralded  as  the  Father  of  Experimental  Science. 
Literally  hundreds  of  physicians  had  applied  the  ex- 
perimental method  in  its  perfect  form  to  many  problems 
in  medicine  and  surgery  during  at  least  three  centuries 
or  more  before  Bacon's  time.  They  did  not  need  to 
have  the  principles  of  it  set  forth  for  them  by  this 


EXPERIMENTAL    METHOD  285 

publicist,  who  knew  how  to  write  about  scientific 
method,  but  did  not  know  how  to  apply  it,  so  far  as  we 
know  anything  about  him ;  and  who  was  utterly  unable 
to  see  the  great  discoveries  that  had  been  made  by  the 
experimental  method  in  the  century  before  his  time,  and 
refused  to  accept  such  great  advances  in  science  as  were 
made  by  Copernicus  and  others.  Some  two  score  of 
years  before  Bacon  wrote,  in  England  itself,  the  great 
Gilbert  of  Colchester,  who  was  elected  the  president  of 
the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  for  the  year  1600,  and 
who  was  physician-in-ordinary  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  had 
applied  the  experimental  method  to  such  good  purpose 
that  he  well  deserves  the  title  that  has  been  conferred 
upon  him  of  Father  of  Electricity. 

There  was  never  a  more  purely  experimental  scientist 
than  Gilbert.  His  work,  De  Magnete,  is  one  of  the 
great  contributions  to  experimental  science.  Anyone 
who  thinks  that  experiments  came  only  after  Lord 
Bacon's  time  should  read  this  wonderful  work,  which  is 
at  the  foundation  of  modern  electricity.  For  twenty 
years,  from  1580  to  1600,  Gilbert  spent  all  the  leisure 
that  he  could  snatch  from  his  professional  duties,  in  his 
laboratory.  He  notes  down  his  experiments— his  failures 
as  well  as  his  successes— discusses  them  very  thoroughly, 
suggests  explanations  of  success  and  failure,  hits  upon 
methods  of  control,  but  pursues  the  solution  of  the 
problems  he  has  in  hand  ever  further  and  further.  As 
a  biographer  said  of  him,  "we  find  him  toiling  in  his 
work-shop  at  Colchester  quite  as  Faraday  toiled,  more 
than  two  hundred  years  later,  in  the  low  dark  rooms  of 
the  Royal  Institution  of  Great  Britain/'  Faraday  was 
actuated  by  no  more  calm,  persevering,  inquiring  spirit 
than  was  Gilbert.  To  say  that  any  Englishman  invented 


286  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

or  taught  the  world  the  application  of  the  experimental 
method  in  science  after  Gilbert's  time  is  to  talk 
nonsense. 

Yet  it  was  of  this  great  scientific  observer  that  Lord 
Bacon,  carried  away  by  ill-feeling  and  jealousy  of  a  con- 
temporary, went  so  far  as  to  say  in  his  De  Augmentis 
Scientiarum,  that  Gilbert  "had  attempted  to  found  a 
general  system  upon  the  magnet,  and  endeavored  to 
build  a  ship  out  of  materials  not  sufficient  to  make  the 
rowing-pins  of  a  boat."  When  Bacon  refused  to  accept 
Copernicus' s  teachings,  he  did  not  commit  a  greater  er- 
ror, nor  do  a  greater  wrong  to  mankind,  than  when  he 
made  little  of  Gilbert  of  Colchester's  work.  Poggendorf 
called  Gilbert  the  "  Galileo  of  Magnetism  "  and  Priestley 
hailed  him  as  the  "founder  of  modern  electricity." 
When  Gilbert  did  the  work  on  which  these  titles  are 
founded,  however,  he  was  only  following  out  the  meth- 
ods which  had  been  introduced  into  England  long  before, 
and  which  had  been  exemplified  so  thoroughly  all  during 
the  life  of  Friar  Bacon,  and  of  Friar  Bacon's  great 
teacher,  Albertus  Magnus.  One  would  expect  that  at 
least  in  science  credit  would  be  given  properly,  and  that 
the  false  notions  introduced  by  litterateurs  and  histori- 
ans of  politics  should  not  be  allowed  to  dominate  the 
situation. 

The  position  popularly  assigned  to  Bacon  in  the  his- 
tory of  science  is  indeed  one  of  those  history  lies,  as  the 
Germans  so  bluntly  but  frankly  call  them,  which,  though 
very  generally  accepted,  is  entirely  due  to  a  lack  of 
knowledge  of  the  state  of  education  and  of  the  progress 
of  scientific  investigation  long  before  his  time.  The 
reason  for  this  ignorance  is  the  unfortunate  tradition 
which  has  been  so  long  fostered  in  educational  circles, 


EXPERIMENTAL    METHOD  287 

that  nothing  worth  while  ever  came  out  of  the  Nazareth 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  or  the  centuries  before  the  so-called 
reformation  and  the  Renaissance.  The  ridiculously  utter 
falsity  of  this  impression  we  shall  be  able  properly  to 
characterize  at  the  end  of  the  next  chapter. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  would  have  been  much  truer  to 
have  attributed  the  origin  of  experimental  science  to  his 
great  namesake,  Roger  Bacon,  the  Franciscan  friar, 
whose  work  was  done  at  Paris  and  at  Oxford  during  the 
latter  half  of  that  wonderful  thirteenth  century  that 
saw  the  rise  and  the  development  of  the  universities  to 
that  condition  in  which  they  have  practically  remained 
ever  since.  Even  Bacon,  however,  is  not  the  real  orig- 
inator of  the  inductive  method,  since,  as  we  shall  see, 
the  writings  of  his  great  teacher,  the  profoundest 
scholar  of  this  great  century,  whose  years  are  almost 
coincident  with  it,  Albert  Magnus,  the  Dominican,  who 
afterwards  became  Bishop  of  Ratisbon,  contained  many 
distinct  and  definite  anticipations  of  Bacon  as  regards 
the  inductive  method. 

The  earlier  Bacon,  the  Franciscan,  laid  down  very 
distinctly  the  principle,  that  only  by  careful  observation 
and  experimental  demonstration  could  any  real  knowl- 
edge with  regard  to  natural  phenomena  be  obtained. 
He  not  only  laid  down  the  principle,  however,  but  in 
this,  quite  a  contrast  to  his  later  namesake,  he  followed 
the  route  himself  very  wonderfully.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  his  name  is  deservedly  attached  to  many 
important  beginnings  in  modern  science,  which  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  mention  during  the  course  of  this  and 
the  next  chapter.  His  general  attitude  of  mind  toward 
natural  science  can  be  best  appreciated  from  the  famous 
passage  with  regard  to  his  friend,  Petrus  Peregrinus, 


288  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

who  did  such  excellent  work  in  magnetism  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  and  sent  to  Friar  Bacon  the  details  of  it 
with  the  loving  solicitude  of  a  pupil  to  a  master. 

In  his  Opus  Tertium,  Bacon  thus  praises  the  merits  of 
Peregrinus  :  "I  know  of  only  one  person  who  deserves 
praise  for  his  work  in  experimental  philosophy,  for  he 
does  not  care  for  the  discourses  of  men  and  their  wordy 
warfare,  but  quietly  and  diligently  pursues  the  work  of 
wisdom.  Therefore,  what  others  grope  after  blindly,  as 
bats  in  the  evening  twilight,  this  man  contemplates  in 
all  their  brilliancy  because  he  is  a  master  of  experiment. 
Hence,  he  knows  all  of  natural  science,  whether  pertain- 
ing to  medicine  and  alchemy,  or  to  matters  celestial  or 
terrestrial.  He  has  worked  diligently  in  the  smelting  of 
ores,  as  also  in  the  working  of  minerals ;  he  is  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  all  sorts  of  arms  and  implements  used 
in  military  service  and  in  hunting,  besides  which  he  is 
skilled  in  agriculture  and  in  the  measurement  of  lands. 
It  is  impossible  to  write  a  useful  or  correct  treatise  in 
experimental  philosophy  without  mentioning  this  man's 
name.  Moreover,  he  pursues  knowledge  for  its  own 
sake ;  for  if  he  wished  to  obtain  royal  favor,  he  could 
easily  find  sovereigns  who  would  honor  and  enrich 
him/' 

Brother  Potamian's  reflections  on  this  unexpected 
passage  of  Bacon  are  the  best  interpretation  of  it  for 
the  modern  student  of  science. 

''This  last  statement  is  worthy  of  the  best  utterances 
of  the  twentieth  century.  Say  what  they  will,  the  most 
ardent  pleaders  of  our  day  for  original  work  and  labor- 
atory methods,  cannot  surpass  the  Franciscan  monk  of 
the  thirteenth  century  in  his  denunciation  of  mere  book- 
learning,  or  in  his  advocacy  of  experiment  and  research  ; 


EXPERIMENTAL    METHOD  289 

while  in  Peregrinus,  the  medievalist,  they  have  Bacon's 
impersonation  of  what  a  student  of  science  ought  to  be. 
Peregrinus  was  a  hard  worker,  not  a  mere  theorizer, 
preferring,  Procrusteanlike,  to  make  theory  fit  the  facts 
rather  than  facts  fit  the  theory ;  he  was  a  brilliant  dis- 
coverer, who  knew  at  the  same  time  how  to  use  his  dis- 
coveries for  the  benefit  of  mankind ;  he  was  a  pioneer  of 
science  and  a  leader  in  the  progress  of  the  world. " l 

This  letter  of  Roger  Bacon  contains  every  idea  that  the 
modern  scientists  contend  for  as  significant  in  education. 
It  counsels  observation,  not  theory,  and  says  very  plainly 
what  he  thinks  of  much  talk  without  a  basis  of  observa- 
tion. It  commends  a  mastery  in  experiment  as  the  most 
important  thing  for  science.  It  suggests,  of  course,  by 
implication  at  least,  that  a  man  should  know  all  sciences 
and  all  applications  of  them  ;  but  surely  no  one  will  ob- 
ject to  this  medieval  friar  commending  as  great  a 
breadth  of  mental  development  as  possible,  as  the  ideal 
of  an  educated  man,  and  especially  with  regard  to  the 
experimental  sciences.  Finally,  it  has  the  surprising 
phrase,  that  Peregrinus  pursues  knowledge  for  its  own 
sake.  Friar  Bacon  evidently  would  have  sympathized 
very  heartily  with  Faraday,  who  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  wanted  to  get  out  of  trade  and  into 
science,  because  he  thought  it  unworthy  of  man  to  spend 
all  his  life  accumulating  money,  and  considered  that  the 
only  proper  aim  in  life  is  to  add  to  knowledge.  He  would 
have  been  in  cordial  accord  with  Pasteur,  at  the  end  of 
the  century,  who  told  the  Empress  Eugenie,  when  she 
asked  him  if  he  would  not  exploit  his  discoveries  in 
fermentation  for  the  purpose  of  building  up  a  great 

1  The  letter  of  Petrus  Peregrinus  on  the  Magnet,  A.  D.  1269,  translated  by  Bro. 
Arnold,  M.  Sc.,  with  an  Introductory  Note  by  Bro.  Potamian,  N.  Y.,  1904. 


290  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

brewing  industry  in  France,  that  he  thought  it  un- 
worthy of  a  French  scientist  to  devote  himself  to  a  mere 
money-making  industry. 

For  a  man  of  the  modern  time,  perhaps  the  most 
interesting  expression  that  ever  fell  from  Roger  Bacon's 
lips  is  his  famous  proclamation  of  the  reasons  why  men 
do  not  obtain  genuine  knowledge  more  rapidly  than 
would  seem  ought  to  be  the  case,  from  the  care  and 
time  and  amount  of  work  which  they  have  devoted  to 
its  cultivation.  This  expression  occurs  in  Bacon's  Opus 
Tertium,  which,  it  may  be  recalled,  the  Franciscan  friar 
wrote  at  the  command  of  Pope  Clement,  because  the 
Pope  had  heard  many  interesting  accounts  of  all  that 
the  great  thirteenth  century  teacher  and  experimenter 
was  doing  at  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  wished  to 
learn  for  himself  the  details  of  his  work.  Friar  Bacon 
starts  out  with  the  principle  that  there  are  four  grounds 
of  human  ignorance. 

"These  are:  first,  trust  in  adequate  authority;  sec- 
ond, that  force  of  custom  which  leads  men  to  accept  too 
unquestioningly  what  has  been  accepted  before  their 
time  ;  third,  the  placing  of  confidence  in  the  opinion  of 
the  inexperienced ;  and  fourth,  the  hiding  of  one's  own 
ignorance  with  the  parade  of  superficial  knowledge." 
These  reasons  contain  the  very  essence  of  the  experi- 
mental method,  and  continue  to  be  as  important  in  the 
twentieth  century  as  they  were  in  the  thirteenth.  They 
could  only  have  emanated  from  an  eminently  practical 
mind,  accustomed  to  test  by  observation  and  by  care- 
ful searching  of  authorities  every  proposition  that  came 
to  him. 

It  is  very  evident  that  modern  scientists  would  have 
more  of  kinship  and  intellectual  sympathy  with  Friar 


EXPERIMENTAL    METHOD  291 

Bacon  than  most  of  them  are  apt  to  think  possible.  A 
faithful  student  of  his  writings,  who  was  at  the  same 
time  in  many  ways  a  cordial  admirer  of  medievalism, 
the  late  Professor  Henry  Morley,  who  held  the  chair  of 
English  literature  at  University  College,  London,  whose 
contributions  to  the  History  of  English  Literature  are 
probably  the  most  important  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
has  a  striking  paragraph  with  regard  to  this  attitude  of 
Bacon  toward  knowledge  and  science— two  words  that 
have  the  same  meaning  etymologically,  though  they 
have  come  to  have  quite  different  connotations.  In  the 
third  volume  of  his  English  Writers,  page  321,  Professor 
Morley,  after  quoting  Bacon's  four  grounds  of  human 
ignorance,  said  :— 

' '  No  part  of  that  ground  has  yet  been  cut  away  from 
beneath  the  feet  of  students,  although  six  centuries  ago 
the  Oxford  friar  clearly  pointed  out  its  character.  We 
still  make  sheep  walks  of  second,  third  and  fourth  and 
fiftieth-hand  references  to  authority ;  still  we  are  the 
slaves  of  habit ;  still  we  are  found  following  too  fre- 
quently the  untaught  crowd ;  still  we  flinch  from  the 
righteous  and  wholesome  phrase,  '  I  do  not  know, '  and 
acquiesce  actively  in  the  opinion  of  others,  that  we  know 
what  we  appear  to  know.  Substitute  honest  research, 
original  and  independent  thought,  strict  truth  in  the 
comparison  of  only  what  we  really  know  with  what  is 
really  known  by  others,  and  the  strong  redoubt  of  ig- 
norance is  f  alien. " 

This  attitude  of  mind  of  Friar  Bacon  toward  the  reasons 
for  ignorance,  is  so  different  from  what  is  usually  pred- 
icated of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of  medieval  scholars, 
that  it  seems  worth  while  insisting  on  it.  Authority  is 
supposed  to  have  meant  everything  for  the  scholastics, 


292  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

and  experiment  is  usually  said  to  have  counted  for 
nothing.  They  are  supposed  to  have  been  accustomed 
to  swear  to  the  words  of  the  master—  "jurare  in  verba 
magistri  "  —  yet  here  is  a  great  leader  of  medieval  thought 
insisting  on  just  the  opposite.  As  clearly  as  ever  it  was 
proclaimed,  Bacon  announces  that  an  authority  is  worth 
only  the  reasons  that  he  advances.  These  thirteenth 
century  teachers  are  supposed,  above  all,  to  have  fairly 
bowed  down  and  worshipped  at  the  shrine  of  Aristotle. 
Many  of  them  doubtless  did.  In  every  generation  the 
great  mass  of  mankind  must  find  someone  to  follow.  As 
often  as  not,  their  leaders  are  much  more  fallible  than 
Aristotle.  Bacon,  however,  had  no  undue  reverence  for 
Aristotle  or  anyone  else,  and  he  realized  that  the  blind  fol- 
lowing of  Aristotle  had  done  much  harm.  In  his  sketch 
of  Gilbert  of  Colchester,  which  was  published  in  the 
"  Popular  Science  Monthly  "  for  August,  1901,  Brother 
Potamian  calls  attention  to  this  quality  of  Roger  Bacon 
in  a  striking  passage. 

' '  Roger  Bacon,  after  absorbing  the  learning  of  Oxford 
and  Paris,  wrote  to  the  reigning  Pontiff,  Clement  IV., 
urging  him  to  have  the  works  of  the  Stagirite  burnt  in 
order  to  stop  the  propagation  of  error  in  the  schools. 
The  Franciscan  monk  of  Ilchester  has  left  us,  in  his  Opus 
Majus,  a  lasting  memorial  of  his  practical  genius.  In 
the  section  entitled,  "Scientia  Experimental, "  he 
affirms  that  "Without  experiment,  nothing  can  be 
adequately  known.  An  argument  proves  theoretically, 
but  does  not  give  the  certitude  necessary  to  remove  all 
doubt ;  nor  will  the  mind  repose  in  the  clear  view  of 
truth,  unless  it  finds  it  by  way  of  experiment. "  And  in 
his  Opus  Tertium:  "The  strongest  arguments  prove 
nothing,  so  long  as  the  conclusions  are  not  verified  by 


EXPERIMENTAL    METHOD  293 

experience.  Experimental  science  is  the  queen  of 
sciences  and  the  goal  of  all  speculation. " 

Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  these  expressions  of 
laudatory  appreciation  of  the  great  thirteenth  century 
scientist  are  dictated  more  by  the  desire  to  magnify  his 
work  and  to  bring  out  the  influence  in  science  of  the 
churchmen  of  the  period,  it  seems  well  to  quote  an  ex- 
pression of  opinion  from  the  modern  historian  of  the 
inductive  sciences,  whose  praise  is  scarcely  if  any  less 
outspoken  than  that  of  others  whom  we  have  quoted  and 
who  might  be  supposed  to  be  somewhat  partial  in  their 
judgment.  This  opinion  will  fortify  the  doubters  who 
must  have  authority,  and  at  the  same  time  sums  up  very 
excellently  the  position  which  Roger  Bacon  occupies  in 
the  history  of  science. 

Dr.  Whewell  says  that  Roger  Bacon 's  Opus  Ma  jus  is 
' '  the  encyclopedia  and  Novum  Organon  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  a  work  equally  wonderful  with  regard  to  its 
general  scheme  and  to  the  special  treatises  with  which 
the  outlines  of  the  plans  are  filled  up.  The  professed 
object  of  the  work  is  to  urge  the  necessity  of  a  reform 
in  the  mode  of  philosophizing,  to  set  forth  the  reasons 
why  knowledge  had  not  made  a  greater  progress,  to 
draw  back  attention  to  the  sources  of  knowledge  which 
had  been  unwisely  neglected,  to  discover  other  sources 
which  were  yet  almost  untouched,  and  to  animate  men 
in  the  undertaking  by  a  prospect  of  the  best  advantages 
which  it  offered.  In  the  development  of  this  plan  all 
the  leading  portions  of  science  are  expanded  in  the  most 
complete  shape  which  they  had  at  that  time  assumed  ; 
and  improvements  of  a  very  wide  and  striking  kind  are 
proposed  in  some  of  the  principal  branches  of  study. 
Even  if  the  work  had  no  leading  purposes  it  would  have 


294  THE    POPES  AND    SCIENCE 

been  highly  valuable  as  a  treasure  of  the  most  solid 
knowledge  and  soundest  speculations  of  the  time  ;  even 
if  it  had  contained  no  such  details,  it  would  have  been  a 
work  most  remarkable  for  its  general  views  and  scope." 

The  open  and  inquiring  attitude  of  mind  toward  the 
truths  of  nature  is  supposed  usually  to  be  utterly  at 
variance  with  the  intellectual  temper  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
We  have  heard  so  much  about  the  submission  to  author- 
ity and  the  cultivation  of  tradition  on  the  part  of  medie- 
val scholars  that  we  forget  entirely  how  much  they 
accomplished  in  adding  to  human  knowledge,  and  though 
they  had  their  limitations  of  conservatism,  they  were  no 
more  old  fogies  clinging  to  old-fashioned  ruts  than  are 
the  older  men  of  each  successive  generation  down  even 
to  our  own  time,  in  the  minds  of  their  younger  col- 
leagues. It  might  seem  to  be  difficult  to  substantiate 
such  a  declaration.  It  may  appear  to  be  a  paradox  to  talk 
thus.  It  is  not  hard  to  show  good  reasons  for  it,  and 
far  from  being  a  far-fetched  attempt  to  bolster  up  an 
opinion  more  favorable  to  the  Middle  Ages,  it  is  really  a 
very  simple  expression  of  what  the  history  of  these 
generations  shows  that  they  actually  tried  to  accomplish. 
Roger  Bacon  must  not  be  thought  to  be  alone  in  this. 
On  the  contrary,  he  was  only  a  leader  with  many  fol- 
lowers. Even  before  his  time,  however,  these  ideas  as 
to  the  necessity  for  observation  had  been  very  forcibly 
expressed  by  many,  and  by  no  one  more  than  Roger's 
distinguished  teacher,  Albertus  Magnus,  whose  name 
is  now  becoming  familiar  to  scholars  as  Albert  the 
Great. 

Albert's  great  pupil,  Roger  Bacon,  is  rightly  looked 
upon  as  the  true  father  of  inductive  science,  an  honor 
that  history  has  unfortunately  taken  from  him  to  confer 


EXPERIMENTAL    METHOD  295 

it  undeservedly  on  his  namesake  of  four  centuries  later  ; 
but  the  teaching  out  of  which  Roger  Bacon  was  to  de- 
velop the  principles  of  experimental  science  can  be  found 
in  many  places  in  the  master's  writings.  In  Albert's 
tenth  book,  wherein  he  catalogues  and  describes  all  the 
trees,  plants,  and  herbs  known  in  his  time,  he  observes: 
' '  All  that  is  here  set  down  is  the  result  of  our  own  ex- 
perience, or  has  been  borrowed  from  authors  whom  we 
know  to  have  written  what  their  personal  experience 
has  confirmed :  for  in  these  matters  experience  alone 
can  give  certainty  "—experimentum  solum  certificat  in 
talibus.  "Such  an  expression, "  says  his  biographer, 
"which  might  have  proceeded  from  the  pen  of  (Francis) 
Bacon,  argues  in  itself  a  prodigious  scientific  progress, 
and  shows  that  the  medieval  friar  was  on  the  track  so 
successfully  pursued  by  modern  natural  philosophy.  He 
had  fairly  shaken  off  the  shackles  which  had  hitherto 
tied  up  discovery,  and  was  the  slave  neither  of  Pliny  nor 
of  Aristotle." 

Albert  was  a  theologian  rather  than  a  scientist,  and 
yet,  deeply  versed  as  he  was  in  theology,  he  declared  in 
a  treatise  concerning  Heaven  and  Earth,1  that  "in 
studying  nature  we  have  not  to  enquire  how  God  the 
Creator  may,  as  He  freely  wills,  use  His  creatures  to 
work  miracles  and  thereby  show  forth  His  power ;  we 
have  rather  to  enquire  what  nature  with  its  immanent 
causes  can  naturally  bring  to  pass. ' '  This  can  scarcely 
fail  to  seem  a  surprising  declaration  to  those  who  have 
been  accustomed  to  think  of  medieval  philosophers  as 
turning  by  preference  to  miraculous  explanations  of 
things,  but  such  a  notion  is  founded  partly  on  false  tra- 
dition, with  regard  to  the  real  teaching  of  the  medieval 

J  De  Ccelo  et  Mundo,  I.  tr.  iv.,  X. 


296  THE   POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

scholars,  and  even  more  on  the  partisan  declarations  of 
those  who  thought  it  the  proper  thing  to  make  as  little 
as  possible  of  the  intelligence  of  the  people  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  in  order  to  account  for  their  adhesion  to  the 
Catholic  Church. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Albert's  declaration,  far  from 
being  an  innovation,  was  only  in  pursuance  of  the  truly 
philosophic  inethod  which  had  characterized  the  writings 
of  the  great  Christian  thinkers  from  the  earlier  time. 
Unfortunately,  the  declarations  of  lesser  minds  are  some- 
times accepted  as  having  represented  the  thoughts  of 
men  and  the  policy  of  the  Church.  It  is  not  these  lesser 
men,  however,  who  have  been  in  special  honor.  No 
one,  for  instance,  can  possibly  be  looked  upon  as  repre- 
senting Church  teaching  better  than  Augustine,  who  be- 
cause of  the  depth  of  his  teaching,  yet  his  wonderful 
fidelity  to  Christian  dogma,  received  the  formal  title  of 
Father  of  the  Church,  which  carried  with  it  the  approval 
of  everything  that  he  had  written.  There  is  a  well- 
known  quotation  from  St.  Augustine  which  shows  how 
much  he  deprecated  the  attempt  to  make  Scriptures  an 
authority  in  science,  and  how  much  he  valued  observa- 
tion as  compared  with  authority,  in  such  matters  as  are 
really  within  the  domain  of  investigation  by  experi- 
ment and  observation. 

He  says  :  "It  very  often  happens  that  there  is  some 
question  as  to  the  earth  or  the  sky,  or  the  other  ele- 
ments of  this  world,  respecting  which  one  who  is  not  a 
Christian  has  knowledge  derived  from  most  certain 
reasoning  or  observation  "  (that  is,  from  the  ordinary 
means  at  the  command  of  an  investigator  in  natural 
science),  "and  it  is  very  disgraceful  and  mischievous, 
and  of  all  things  to  be  carefully  avoided,  that  a  Chris- 


EXPERIMENTAL    METHOD  297 

tian  speaking  of  such  matters  as  being  according  to  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  should  be  heard  by  an  unbeliever 
talking  such  nonsense  that  the  unbeliever,  perceiving 
him  to  be  as  wide  from  the  mark  as  east  from  west, 
can  hardly  restrain  himself  from  laughing. "  It  is  the 
opinions  of  such  men  as  Augustine  and  Albert  that  must 
be  taken  as  representing  the  real  attitude  of  theologians 
and  churchmen  toward  science,  and  not  those  of  lesser 
men,  whose  zeal,  as  is  ever  true  of  the  minor  adherents 
of  any  cause,  always  is  prone  to  carry  them  into  unfor- 
tunate excesses. 

Albert  the  Great  was  indeed  a  thoroughgoing  experi- 
mentalist in  the  best  modern  sense  of  the  term.  He 
says  in  the  second  book  of  his  treatise  On  Minerals  (De 
Mineralibus) :  ''The  aim  of  natural  science  is  not  simply 
to  accept  the  statements  of  others,  that  is,  what  is  nar- 
rated by  people,  but  to  investigate  the  causes  that  are 
at  work  in  nature  for  themselves/*  When  we  take  this 
expression  in  connection  with  the  other,  that  "we must 
endeavor  to  find  out  what  nature  can  naturally  bring  to 
pass,"  the  complete  foundation  of  experimentalism  is 
laid.  Albert  held  this  principle  not  only  in  theory,  but 
applied  it  in  practice. 

It  is  often  said  that  the  scholastic  philosophers,  and 
notably  Albertus  Magnus  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  almost 
idolatrously  worshipped  at  the  shrine  of  Aristotle,  and 
were  ready  to  accept  anything  that  this  great  Greek 
philosopher  had  taught.  We  have  already  quoted  Roger 
Bacon's  request  to  the  Pope  to  forbid  the  study  of  the 
Stagirite.  It  is  interesting  to  find  in  this  regard,  that 
while  Albert  declared  that  in  questions  of  natural  science 
he  would  prefer  to  follow  Aristotle  to  St.  Augustine— a 
declaration  which  may  seem  surprising  to  many  people 


298  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

who  have  been  prone  to  think  that  what  the  Fathers  of 
the  Church  said  medieval  scholars  followed  slavishly— he 
does  not  hesitate  to  point  out  errors  made  by  the  Greek 
philosopher,  nor  to  criticise  his  conclusions  very  freely. 
In  his  Treatise  on  Physics,1  he  says,  "  whoever  believes 
that  Aristotle  was  a  god  must  also  believe  that  he  never 
erred.  But  if  one  believe  that  Aristotle  was  a  man, 
then  doubtless  he  was  liable  to  err  just  as  we  are."  In 
fact,  as  is  pointed  out  by  the  Catholic  Encyclopaedia  in 
its  article  on  Albertus  Magnus,  to  which  we  are  indebted 
for  the  exact  reference  of  the  quotations  that  we  have 
made,  Albert  devotes  a  lengthy  chapter  in  his  Summa 
Theologiae2  to  what  he  calls  the  errors  of  Aristotle. 
His  appreciation  of  Aristotle  is  always  critical.  He  de- 
serves great  credit  not  only  for  bringing  the  scientific 
teaching  of  the  Stagirite  to  the  attention  of  medieval 
scholars,  but  also  for  indicating  the  method  and  the 
spirit  in  which  that  teaching  was  to  be  received. 

With  regard  to  Albert's  devotion  to  the  experimental 
method  and  to  observation  as  the  source  of  knowledge 
in  what  concerns  natural  phenomena,  Julius  Pagel,  in  his 
History  of  Medicine  in  the  Middle  Ages,  which  forms 
one  of  the  parts  of  Puschmann's  Handbook  of  the  His- 
tory of  Medicine,  has  some  very  interesting  remarks  that 
are  worth  while  quoting  here:  "Albert,"  he  says, 
' '  shared  with  the  naturalists  of  the  scholastic  period  the 
quality  of  entering  deeply  and  thoroughly  into  the  ob- 
jects of  nature,  and  was  not  content  with  bare  super- 
ficial details  concerning  them,  which  many  of  the  writers 
of  the  period  penetrated  no  further  than  to  provide  a 
nomenclature.  While  Albert  was  a  churchman  and  an 

iphysica,  lib.  VIII.,  tr.  i.,  xiv. 

2  Summa  Theologiae,  Pars  II.,  tr.  i.,  Quaest  iv. 


EXPERIMENTAL    METHOD  299 

ardent  devotee  of  Aristotle  in  matters  of  natural  phe- 
nomena, he  was  relatively  unprejudiced  and  presented  an 
open  mind.  He  thought  that  he  must  follow  Hippoc- 
rates and  Galen  rather  than  Aristotle  and  Augustine  in 
medicine  and  in  the  natural  sciences.  We  must  concede 
it  as  a  special  subject  of  praise  for  Albert,  that  he  dis- 
tinguished very  strictly  between  natural  and  supernatu- 
ral phenomena.  The  former  he  considered  as  entirely 
the  object  of  the  investigation  of  nature.  The  latter  he 
handed  over  to  the  realm  of  metaphysics. " 

' 'Albert's  efforts, ' '  Pagel  says,  ' '  to  set  down  the  limits 
of  natural  science  shows  already  the  seeds  of  a  more 
scientific  treatment  of  natural  phenomena,  and  a  recog- 
nition of  the  necessity  to  know  things  in  their  causes— 
rerum  cognoscere  causas— and  not  to  consider  that  every- 
thing must  simply  be  attributed  to  the  action  of  Provi- 
dence. He  must  be  considered  as  one  of  the  more 
rational  thinkers  of  his  time,  though  the  fetters  of  scho- 
lasticism still  bound  him  quite  enough,  and  his  mastery 
of  dialectics,  which  he  had  learned  from  the  strenuous 
Dominican  standpoint,  still  made  him  subordinate  the 
laws  of  nature  to  the  Church's  teaching  in  ways  that  sug- 
gested the  possibility  of  his  being  less  free  than  might 
otherwise  have  been  the  case.  His  thoroughgoing  piety, 
his  profound  scholarship,  his  boundless  industry ;  the 
almost  uncontrollable  impulse  of  his  mind  after  univer- 
sality of  knowledge  ;  his  many-sidedness  in  literary  pro- 
ductivity ;  and  finally  the  universal  recognition  which 
he  received  from  his  contemporaries  and  succeeding 
generations, —stamp  him  as  one  of  the  most  imposing 
characters  and  one  of  the  most  wonderful  phenomena  of 
the  Middle  Ages." 

Perhaps  in  no  department  of  the  history  of  science 


300  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

has  more  nonsense  been  talked,  than  with  regard  to  the 
neglect  of  experiment  and  observation  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  'The  men  who  made  the  series  of  experiments 
necessary  to  enable  them  to  raise  the  magnificent  Gothic 
cathedrals  ;  who  built  the  fine  old  municipal  buildings 
and  abbeys  and  castles ;  who  spanned  wide  rivers  with 
bridges,  and  yet  had  the  intelligence  and  the  skill  to  dec- 
orate all  of  these  buildings  as  effectively  as  they  did,  — 
cannot  be  considered  either  as  impractical  or  lacking  in 
powers  of  observation.  As  I  show  in  the  chapter  The 
Medieval  University  Man  and  Science,  Dante,  the  poet 
and  literary  man  of  the  thirteenth  century,  had  his  mind 
stored  with  quite  as  much  material  information  with 
regard  to  physical  science  and  nature  study,  as  any 
modern  educated  man.  It  is  true  that  the  men  of  the 
Middle  Ages  did  not  make  observations  on  exactly  the 
same  things  that  we  do,  but  to  say  either  that  they 
lacked  powers  of  observation,  or  did  not  use  their  powers 
or  failed  to  appreciate  the  value  of  such  powers,  is 
simply  a  display  of  ignorance  of  what  they  actually 
did. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  it  comes  to  the  question  of 
the  principles  of  experimental  science  and  the  value  they 
placed  on  them,  these  men  of  the  medieval  universities, 
when  sympathetically  studied,  prove  to  have  been  quite 
as  sensible  as  the  scientists  of  our  own  time.  The  idea 
that  Francis  Bacon  in  any  way  laid  the  foundation'  of 
the  experimental  sciences,  or  indeed  did  anything  more 
than  give  a  literary  statement  of  the  philosophy  of  the 
experimental  science,  though  he  himself  proved  utterly 
unable  to  apply  the  principles  that  he  discussed  to  the 
scientific  discoveries  of  his  own  time,  is  one  of  the  inex- 
plicable absurdities  of  history  that  somehow  get  in  and 


EXPERIMENTAL    METHOD  3Q1 

cannot  be  got  out.  The  great  thinkers  of  the  medieval 
period  had  not  only  reached  the  same  conclusions  as  he 
did,  but  actually  applied  them  three  centuries  before  ; 
and  the  great  medieval  universities  were  occupied  with 
problems,  even  in  physical  science,  not  very  different 
from  those  which  have  given  food  for  thought  for  sub- 
sequent generations.  We  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter 
how  successfully  they  applied  these  great  principles 
of  the  experimental  method,  and  how  much  they  antici- 
pated many  phases  of  science  that  we  are  apt  to  think  of 
as  distinctly  modern. 


CHURCHMEN  AND  PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AT 
THE  MEDIEVAL  UNIVERSITIES. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  at  all  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
know  anything  about  the  early  history  of  the  univer- 
sities, but  that  the  Popes  were  entirely  favorable  to  the 
great  educational  movement  represented  by  these  insti- 
tutions. It  is  ordinarily  supposed,  however,  that  the 
medieval  universities  limited  their  attention  to  philos- 
ophy and  theology,  and  that  even  these  subjects  were 
studied  from  such  narrow  religious  standpoints,  as  to 
make  them  of  very  little  value  for  the  development  of 
human  knowledge  or  the  evolution  of  the  human  mind. 
Any  such  supposition  is  the  result  of  ignorance  on  the 
part  of  those  who  entertain  it,  as  to  the  actual  curricu- 
lum of  studies  at  the  early  universities,  though  it  is  not 
surprising  that  it  should  be  very  common,  because,  un- 
fortunately, it  has  been  fostered  by  many  writers  on 
educational  subjects,  especially  in  English.  Scholasti- 
cism is  often  said  to  have  been  the  very  acme  of  absur- 
dity in  teaching,  and  its  real  import  is  entirely  missed. 
Students  and  professors  are  supposed  to  have  been 
limited  in  their  interests  to  dialectics  and  metaphysics  in 
the  narrowest  sense  of  these  terms,  and  much  time  was, 
according  to  even  presumably  good  authorities,  frittered 
away  in  idle  speculations  with  regard  to  things  that  are 
absolutely  unknowable.1 

1  Much  of  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  is  taken  from  the  chapter  on  What  and 
How  They  Studied  at  the  Universities,  in  my  book  The  Thirteenth  Greatest  of  Cen- 
turies. (Catholic  Summer  School  Press,  N.  Y.)  Some  of  the  sources  from  which  the 
material  is  obtained  will  be  found  more  fully  referred  to  there,  and  further  informa- 
tion with  regard  to  scientific  studies  at  these  universities  will  be  found  in  the  chapter 
(302) 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  ($(& 

Anyone  who  studies  the  works  of  the  professors  at 
these  medieval  universities  can  scarcely  fail  to  become 
entirely  sympathetic  toward  these  scholars,  who  devoted 
themselves  with  so  much  ardor  to  every  form  of  learn- 
ing that  interested  them,  and  who  did  not  fail  to  accom- 
plish at  least  as  much  for  future  generations,  as  any 
other  generation  of  university  men  in  history.  Profes- 
sor George  Saintsbury  in  his  book.  On  the  Rise  of  Ro- 
mance and  the  Flourishing  of  Allegory,  which  is  really 
the  story  of  thirteenth  century  literature  in  Europe,  in 
the  series  of  Periods  of  European  Literature,1  in  sum- 
ming up  the  contributions  of  these  medieval  professors 
to  human  knowledge,  said  : 

' '  Yet,  there  has  always,  in  generous  souls  who  have 
some  tincture  of  philosophy,  subsisted  a  curious  kind  of 
sympathy  and  yearning  over  the  work  of  these  genera- 
tions of  mainly  disinterested  scholars,  who,  whatever 
they  were,  were  thorough,  and  whatever  they  could  not 
do,  could  think.  And  there  have  been  in  these  latter 
days  some  graceless  ones  who  have  asked  whether  the 
science  of  the  nineteenth  century,  after  an  equal  inter- 
val, will  be  of  any  more  positive  value— whether  it  will 
not  have  even  less  comparative  interest  than  that  which 
appertains  to  the  Scholasticism  of  the  thirteenth. ' ' 

Nothing  could  well  be  less  true  than  the  impression 
that  philosophy  and  theology  were  the  exclusive  subjects 
of  the  medieval  university  curriculum.  If  because  our 
modern  universities  devote  a  great  amount  of  time  to 
physical  science  in  its  various  forms,  and  more  of  their 
publications  concern  this  department  of  educational 
work  than  any  other,  it  were  to  be  said  by  some  future 
generation  that  our  universities  occupied  themselves 

on  Post-graduate  Work  in  the  same  book,  from  which  a  certain  amount  of  material 
is  used  again  here, 
i  Scribners,  1896. 


304  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

with  nothing  but  physical  science,  it  would  be  much 
more  true  than  the  expressions  which  stamp  medieval 
university  teaching  as  limited  to  dialectics  and  meta- 
physics. Besides  science  in  the  modern  universities, 
philosophy  in  all  its  branches  is  the  subject  of  ardent 
devotion,  and  the  classics  and  languages  are  not  neg- 
lected, and  medicine  and  law  are  important  post- 
graduate departments,  and  even  theology  comes  in  for 
a  goodly  share  of  attention  and  occupies  the  minds  of 
many  deep  students.  In  the  medieval  universities,  medi- 
cine particularly  occupied  a  very  large  share  of  atten- 
tion ;  but  all  the  physical  sciences  were  the  subject  not 
only  of  distant  curiosity,  but  of  careful  investigation, 
many  of  them  along  lines  that  are  supposed  to  be  dis- 
tinctly modern,  yet  which  are  really  as  old  as  the  uni- 
versity movement. 

Turner  in  his  History  of  Philosophy l  summed  up  the 
books  most  commonly  used,  the  method  of  examination 
and  of  conferring  degrees,  in  a  way  that  shows  the  char- 
acter of  university  teaching  during  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, and  brings  out  not  only  its  thoroughness,  but  also 
the  fact  that  a  good  deal  of  time  was  devoted  to  what 
we  now  call  physical  or  natural  science,  since  the  trea- 
tises on  animals,  on  the  earth  and  on  meteors,  under 
which  all  the  phenomena  of  the  Heavens  were  included, 
represent  almost  exactly  those  questions  in  physical 
science  that  most  men  who  do  not  intend  to  devote  them- 
selves particularly  to  science  care  to  know  something 
about  at  the  present  time.  He  says  : 

"  By  statutes  issued  at  various  times  during  the  thir- 
teenth century,  it  was  provided  that  the  professor  should 
read,  that  is,  expound,  the  text  of  certain  standard 

1  Ginn  &  Co.,  Boston  and  New  York,  1903- 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  305 

authors  in  philosophy  and  theology.  In  a  document  pub- 
lished by  Denifle  (the  distinguished  authority  on  medie- 
val universities) ,  and  by  him  referred  to  the  year  1252, 
we  find  the  following  works  among  those  prescribed  for 
the  Faculty  of  Arts :  Logica  Vetus  (the  old  Boethian 
text  of  a  portion  of  the  Organon,  probably  accompanied 
by  Porphyry's  Isagoge) ;  Logica  Nova  (the  new  trans- 
lation of  the  Organon);  Gilbert's  Liber  Sex  Principi- 
orum  ;  and  Donatus's  Barbarismus.  A  few  years  later 
(1255),  the  following  works  are  prescribed  :  Aristotle's 
Physics,  Metaphysics,  De  Anima,  De  Animalibus,  De 
Cselo  et  Mundo,  Meteorica,  the  minor  psychological  trea- 
tises and  some  Arabian  or  Jewish  works,  such  as  the 
Liber  de  Causis  and  De  Differentia  Spiritus  et  Animae." 

As  time  went  on  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  cen- 
turies, the  attention  to  physical  sciences  was  increased 
rather  than  diminished.  Much  of  Albertus  Magnus's 
work,  and  practically  all  of  that  of  Aquinas  and  Roger 
Bacon,  was  done  after  the  date  here  given  (1255). 

The  medieval  workers  at  the  universities  were  under 
the  obligation  of  having  to  lay  the  foundations  for  modern 
thought,  instead  of  being  able  to  build  up  the  magnifi- 
cent superstructure  which  has  risen  in  the  seven  cen- 
turies since  the  universities  were  founded.  Without  the 
foundation,  however,  the  building  would  indeed  not  be 
worthy  of  admiration.  Their  work  is  concealed  beneath 
the  surfaces  of  things,  but  is  not  the  less  important  for 
that,  and  is  in  most  ways  more  significant  than  many 
portions  of  the  structure  that  have  risen  above  it.  Un- 
less one  digs  down  to  see  how  broad  and  deep  and  firm 
they  laid  the  foundations,  the  modern  critic  will  not  be 
able  to  appreciate  their  work  at  its  true  value.  Very 
few  men  are  able  to  do  this ;  still  fewer  have  the  time 
or  the  inclination.  The  consequence  is  a  sad  lack  of 
sympathy  with  these  old-time  workers,  who  neverthe- 
less did  their  work  so  well,  and  whose  accomplishment 
meant  so  much  for  the  modern  time.  It  is  not  hard  to 


306  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

show  that  their  minds  were  occupied  with  just  the  same 
problems  that  interest  us,  and  the  wonderful  thing  is 
that  they  anticipated  so  many  of  our  conclusions,  though 
these  anticipations  are  wrapped  up  not  infrequently  in 
a  terminology  that  obscures  their  meaning  for  any  but 
the  patient,  sympathetic  student.  In  his  Harveian 
Lecture,  Science  and  Medieval  Thought,  Professor  Clifford 
Allbutt,  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  England, 
said  :— 

"Each  period  of  human  achievement  has  its  phases  of 
spring,  culmination,  and  decline ;  and  it  is  in  its  decline 
that  the  leafless  tree  comes  to  judgment.  In  the  un- 
loveliness  of  decay,  the  Middle  Ages  are  as  other  ages 
have  been,  as  our  own  will  be  ;  but  in  those  ages  there 
was  more  than  one  outburst  of  life  ;  more  than  once  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  youth  of  the  West  went  out  to  explore 
the  ways  of  the  realm  of  ideas  ;  and  if  we  believe  our- 
selves at  last  to  have  found  the  only  thoroughfare,  we 
owe  this  knowledge  to  those  who  before  us  traveled  the 
uncharted  seas.  If  we  have  inherited  a  great  commerce 
and  dominion  of  science,  it  is  because  their  argosies  had 
been  on  the  ocean  and  their  camels  on  the  desert.  Dis- 
cipulus  est  prioris  posterior  dies ;  man  cannot  know  all 
at  once  ;  knowledge  must  be  built  up  by  laborious  gen- 
erations. In  all  times,  as  in  our  own,  the  advance  of 
knowledge  is  very  largely  by  elimination  and  negation  ; 
we  ascertain  what  is  not  true,  and  we  weed  it  out.  To 
perceive  and  respect  the  limits  of  the  knowable,  we 
must  have  sought  to  transgress  them.  We  can  build  our 
bridge  over  the  chasm  of  ignorance  with  stored  material 
in  which  the  thirteenth  century  was  poor  indeed ;  we 
can  fix  our  bearings  where  then  was  no  foundation  ;  yet 
man  may  be  well  engaged  when  he  knows  not  the  ends 
of  his  work  ;  and  the  schoolmen  in  digging  for  treasure 
cultivated  the  field  of  knowledge,  even  for  Galileo  and 
Harvey,  for  Newton  and  Darwin.  Their  many  errors 
came  not  of  indolence,  for  they  were  passionate  workers ; 
not  of  hatred  of  light,  for  they  were  eager  for  the  light ; 
not  of  fickleness,  for  they  wrought  with  unparalleled 
devotion  ;  nor  indeed  of  ignorance  of  particular  things, 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  3Q7 

for  they  knew  many  things.  They  erred  because  they 
did  not  know,  and  they  could  not  know  the  conditions  of 
the  problems  which,  as  they  emerged  from  the  cauldron 
of  war  and  from  the  wreck  of  letters  and  science,  they 
were  nevertheless  bound  to  attack,  if  civil  societies 
worthy  of  the  name  were  to  be  constructed. " 

We  are  very  prone  to  think  that  the  interests  of  the 
men  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  very  different  to  our  own, 
and  that  they  had  not  the  slightest  inkling  of  what  were 
to  be  the  interests  of  the  future  centuries.  Ordinarily 
students  of  science,  for  instance,  would  be  sure  to  think 
that  electricity  and  magnetism,  interest  in  which  is 
supposed  to  be  a  thing  of  comparatively  recent  years,  or 
at  most  of  the  last  two  centuries,  would  not  be  mentioned 
at  all  in  the  thirteenth  century.  Such  an  idea  is  not 
only  absolutely  false  to  the  history  of  science  as  we 
know  it,  but  is  utterly  unjust  to  the  powers  of  observa- 
tion of  men  who  have  always  noted,  and  almost  neces- 
sarily tried  to  investigate,  the  phenomena  which  are 
now  grouped  under  these  sciences.  Perhaps  no  better 
idea  of  the  intense  interest  of  this  first  century  of  uni- 
versity life  in  natural  phenomena  can  be  obtained,  than 
will  be  gleaned  at  once  from  the  following  short  para- 
graph, in  which  Brother  Potamian,  of  Manhattan  Col- 
lege, in  his  brief,  striking  introduction  to  the  letter  of 
Petrus  Peregrinus  describing  the  first  conception  of  a 
dynamo,  condenses  the  references  to  magnetic  manifes- 
tions  that  are  found  in  the  literature  of  the  time.1 

Most  of  the  writers  he  mentions  were  not  scientists  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  but  were  literary  men  ; 
and  the  fact  that  these  references  occur,  shows  very 
clearly  that  there  must  have  been  widespread  interest  in 
such  scientific  phenomena,  since  they  had  attracted  the 

1  The  Letter  of  Petrus  Peregrinus,  N.  Y.,  1904. 


308  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

attention  of  literary  writers,  who  would  not  have  spoken 
of  them  doubtless,  but  that  they  knew  that  in  this 
they  would  be  satisfying  as  well  as  exciting  public 
interest. 

"  Abbot  Neckam,  the  Augustinian  (1157-1217),  distin- 
guished between  the  properties  of  the  two  ends  of  the 
lodestone,  and  gives  in  his  De  Utensilibus  what  is  per- 
haps the  earliest  reference  to  the  mariner's  compass 
that  we  have.  Albertus  Magnus,  the  Dominican  (1193- 
1280) ,  in  his  treatise  De  Mineralibus,  enumerates  differ- 
ent kinds  of  natural  magnets  and  states  some  of  the 
properties  commonly  attributed  to  them  ;  the  minstrel, 
Guyot  de  Provins,  in  a  famous  satirical  poem  written 
about  1208,  refers  to  the  directive  quality  of  the  lode- 
stone  and  its  use  in  navigation,  as  do  also  Cardinal  de 
Vitry  in  his  Historia  Orientalis  (1215-1220)  ;  Brunetto 
Latini,  poet,  orator  and  philosopher  (the  teacher  of 
Dante) ,  in  his  Tresor  des  Sciences,  a  veritable  library, 
written  in  Paris  in  1260  ;  Raymond  Lully,  the  enlightened 
Doctor,  in  his  treatise,  De  Contemplatione,  begun  in 
1272 ;  and  Guido  Guinicelli,  the  poet-priest  of  Bologna, 
who  died  in  1276. " 

All  of  these  writers,  it  may  be  said,  with  a  single 
exception,  were  clergymen,  and  some  of  them  were  very 
prominent  ecclesiastics  in  their  time. 

The  present  generation  has  not  as  yet  quite  got  over 
the  bad  habit  of  making  fun  of  these  medieval  thinkers 
for  having  accepted  the  idea  of  the  transmutation  of 
metals  and  searched  so  assiduously  for  the  philosopher's 
stone.  This  supposed  absurdity  has  for  most  scientific 
minds  during  the  nineteenth  century  been  quite  enough 
of  itself,  without  more  ado,  to  stamp  the  generations  of 
the  Middle  Ages  who  accepted  it,  as  utterly  lacking,  if 
not  in  common  sense,  at  least  in  serious  reasoning  power. 
At  the  present  moment,  however,  we  are  in  the  full  tide 
of  a  set  of  opinions  that  tend  to  make  us  believe  not 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  3Q9 

only  in  the  possibility,  but  in  the  actual  occurrence  of  the 
transmutation  of  metals.  Observations  made  with  re- 
gard to  radium  have  revolutionized  all  the  scientific 
thinking  in  this  matter.  Radium  has  apparently  been 
demonstrated  changing  into  helium,  and  so  there  is  a 
transmutation  of  metals.  On  the  strength  of  this  and 
certain  other  recently  investigated  physical  phenomena, 
there  is  a  definite  tendency  in  the  minds  of  many  serious 
students  of  physics  and  chemistry  to  consider  that  other 
metals  possibly  change  into  one  another,  and  that  all 
that  is  needed  is  careful  observation  to  discover  it,  for  this 
change  is  supposed  to  be  going  on  around  us  all  the  time. 
Not  very  long  since,  a  professor  of  physical  science  at 
an  important  American  university  suggested  that  it 
would  be  extremely  interesting^  take  a  large  specimen 
of  lead  ore,  say  several  tons,  and  having  removed  from 
it  carefully  all  traces  of  silver  that  might  be  contained  in 
it,  put  it  away  for  twenty  years,  and  then  see  whether 
any  further  traces  of  silver  could  be  found.  The  idea 
that  possibly  lead  occasionally  changes  into  silver  by 
some  slow  chemical  process  is  evidently  deep-seated  in 
his  mind.  It  would  remind  one  of  Newton's  expression 
some  two  centuries  ago,  that  he  had  seen  copper  and 
gold  ores  occurring  together  in  specimens,  and  that  he 
looked  upon  this  as  evidence  that  copper  in  the  course  of 
time  changes  into  gold.  Certain  it  is  that  lead  ores  con- 
stantly occur  in  connection  with  silver,  or  at  least  that 
silver  is  found  wherever  lead  is;  that  a  corresponding  re- 
lationship between  gold  and  copper  has  also  been  noted ; 
and  that  Newton's  idea  was  not  near  so  absurd,  in  the 
light  of  what  we  now  know,  or  still  more,  what  we  sur- 
mise on  good  scientific  grounds,  as  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury scientists  would  have  had  us  believe. 


310  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

As  I  go  over  this  manuscript  for  the  last  time  just  be- 
fore going  to  press,  there  comes  the  announcement  that 
Sir  William  Ramsay  has  probably  solved  the  problem  of 
the  transmutation  of  metals.  He  has  shown  apparently 
that  lithium,  when  acted  upon  by  radium  emanations, 
changes  to  some  extent  to  copper.  It  is  true  that  the 
change  is  only  in  small  quantities,  and  that  there  is  no 
question  as  yet  of  any  commercial  value  to  the  process  ; 
but  we  all  know  that  it  is  by  such  small  scientific  an- 
nouncements as  this  that  the  entering  wedges  of  large 
industrial  processes  are  introduced.  The  fact  that  this 
announcement  should  have  been  made  before  the  British 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science  and  by  a 
thoroughly  conservative  English  chemist,  probably 
settles  forever  the  question  of  the  transmutation  of 
metals,  in  the  way  that  the  people  of  the  Middle  Ages 
looked  at  the  problem  rather  than  as  the  intervening 
centuries  did. 

The  old  medieval  thinkers,  then,  were  only  ridiculous 
to  a  few  generations  of  nineteenth  century  scientists 
who,  because  they  knew  a  little  more  about  certain  de- 
tails in  science  than  preceding  generations  had  done, 
thought  that  they  knew  all  that  there  was  to  be  known 
about  this  immense  subject,  and  made  fun  of  thinkers 
quite  as  great  as  themselves  in  preceding  centuries.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century,  instead  of  mak- 
ing ourselves  ludicrous  by  raising  a  laugh  at  the  ex- 
pense of  these  fellow  students  in  science  of  the  olden 
time,  we  should  rather  feel  like  congratulating  them 
upon  the  perspicacity  which  enabled  them  to  anticipate 
a  great  truth  with  regard  to  the  relationships  of  chem- 
ical elements,  especially  the  metals,  to  each  other.  The 
present-day  idea  of  thinking  physicists  and  chemists  is 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  3H 

that  the  seventy  odd  elements  described  in  our  text- 
books on  chemistry,  are  not  so  many  essentially  in- 
dependent forms  of  matter,  but  are  rather  examples  of 
one  kind  of  material  exhibiting  special  dynamic  energies 
which  it  possesses  under  varying  conditions,  as  yet  not 
well  understood.  This  was  exactly  the  idea  that  the  old 
scholastic  philosophers  had  of  the  constitution  of  matter. 
They  said  that  matter  was  composed  of  two  principles, 
prime  matter  and  form.  When  this  doctrine  of  theirs  is 
properly  elucidated,  it  proves  to  be  an  anticipation  of 
what  is  most  modern  in  the  thoughts  of  twentieth  cen- 
tury physicists.  A  re-statement  of  the  old-time  views 
would  read  not  unlike  many  a  contribution  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  this  subject  at  an  annual  meeting  of  the 
British  or  American  Associations  for  the  Advancement 
of  Science. 

This  doctrine  of  prime  matter  and  form,  which  the 
scholastics  adopted  and  adapted  from  the  Greeks,  and 
especially  from  Aristotle,  cannot  fail  to  be  of  interest 
even  to  modern  scientists.  According  to  it,  prime 
matter  was  an  indeterminate  something  which  made  up 
the  underlying  substratum  of  all  material  things.  Form 
was  the  dynamic  element  which  entered  into  the  compo- 
sition of  matter  and  made  it  exhibit  its  specific  qualities. 
We  have  heard  much  of  ionization  in  recent  times,  and 
in  many  ways  this  would  remind  one  even  only  slightly 
familiar  with  the  old  scholastics,  of  their  theories  of 
form  entering  into  matter.  Prime  matter  was  supposed 
to  be  absolutely  without  distinguishing  characteristics 
of  its  own.  It  was  indifferent,  and  had  no  influence  on 
other  material  unless  when  associated  with  form.  Form 
was  the  dynamic  and  energizing  element. 

This,  of  course,  still  remains  in  the  realm  of  theory ; 


312  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

but  it  is  interesting  to  realize  that  in  the  olden  time  they 
theorized  about  the  constitution  of  matter  at  the  univer- 
sities of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  just  as 
we  do  now,  and  most  surprisingly  came  to  conclusions 
quite  like  ours.  Their  thoughts  not  only  concerned  the 
same  subject,  but  were  worked  out  in  the  same  way.  It 
is  idle  to  say  that  they  knew  nothing  about  it  and  hit  on 
their  theory  by  chance.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  knew 
very  little,  if  any  less  about  it  than  we  do,  for  our  igno- 
rance on  this  subject  is  monumental,  and  they  antici- 
pated our  latest  thinking  by  seven  centuries.  Many 
have  been  the  divagations  of  thought  since  that  time, 
but  now  we  return  to  their  conclusions.  It  is  chastening 
to  the  modern  mind,  so  confident  of  the  advances  that 
have  been  made  by  these  latter  generations,  "the  heirs 
of  all  the  ages  in  the  foremost  files  of  time,"  to  find  that 
we  are  so  little  farther  on  in  an  important  problem  than 
these  men  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

Other  basic  problems  with  regard  to  matter  and  force 
filled  the  minds  of  the  medieval  schoolmen  quite  as  they 
do  those  of  the  modern  generations.  For  instance,  they 
occupied  themselves  with  the  question  of  the  indestruc- 
tibility of  matter,  and  also,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  with 
the  conservation  of  energy.  We  have  presumably  learned 
so  much  by  experimental  demonstration  and  original 
observation  in  the  physical  sciences  in  the  modern  times, 
and  especially  during  the  precious  nineteenth  century, 
that  any  thinking  of  the  medieval  mind  along  these  lines 
might,  in  the  opinion  of  those  who  know  nothing  of  what 
they  speak,  be  at  once  set  aside  without  further  ques- 
tion as  preposterous,  or  at  best  nugatory.  The  opinions 
of  medieval  scholars  in  these  matters  would  be  pre- 
sumed, without  more  ado,  to  have  been  so  entirely  spec- 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  313 

ulative  as  to  deserve  no  further  attention.  Nothing 
could  well  be  farther  from  the  truth  than  this.  No- 
where will  more  marvelous  anticipations  of  what  is 
most  modern  in  science  be  found  than  in  some  of 
these  considerations  of  basic  principles  in  the  physical 
sciences. 

For  instance,  Thomas  Aquinas,  usually  known  as  St. 
Thomas,  in  a  series  of  lectures  given  at  the  University 
of  Paris  toward  the  end  of  the  third  quarter  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  stated  as  the  most  important  conclusion 
with  regard  to  matter  that  "  Nihil  omnino  in  nihilum 
redigetur.  —Nothing  at  all  will  ever  be  reduced  to  noth- 
ingness. "  By  this,  as  is  very  evident  from  the  context, 
he  meant  to  say  that  matter  woulol  never  be  annihilated 
and  could  never  be  destroyed.  It  might  be  changed  in 
various  ways,  but  it  could  never  go  back  into  the  noth- 
ingness from  which  it  had  been  taken  by  the  creative 
act.  Annihilation  was  pronounced  as  not  being  a  part 
of  the  scheme  of  things  as  far  as  the  human  mind  could 
hope  to  fathom  its  meaning. 

In  this  sentence,  then,  Thomas  of  Aquin  was  proclaim- 
ing the  doctrine  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter.  It 
was  not  until  well  on  in  the  nineteenth  century  that  the 
chemists  and  physicists  of  modern  times  realized  the 
truth  of  this  great  principle.  The  chemists  had  seen 
matter  change  its  form  in  many  ways,  had  seen  it  dis- 
appear apparently  in  the  smoke  of  fire  or  evaporate  under 
the  influence  of  heat,  but  investigation  proved  that  if 
care  were  taken  in  the  collection  of  the  gases  that  came 
off  under  these  circumstances,  of  the  ashes  of  combus- 
tion and  of  the  residue  of  evaporation,  all  the  original 
material  that  had  been  contained  in  the  supposedly  dis- 
appearing substance  could  be  recovered,  or  at  least  com- 


314  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

pletely  accounted  for.  The  physicists  on  their  part  had 
realized  this  same  truth,  and  finally  there  came  the 
definite  enunciation  of  the  absolute  indestructibility  of 
matter.  St.  Thomas's  conclusion,  ''Nothing  at  all  will 
ever  be  reduced  to  nothingness/'  had  anticipated  this 
doctrine  by  nearly  seven  centuries.  What  happened  in 
the  nineteenth  century  was  that  there  came  an  experi- 
mental demonstration  of  the  truth  of  the  principle.  The 
principle  itself,  however,  had  been  reached  long  before 
by  the  human  mind,  by  speculative  processes  quite  as 
inerrable  in  their  way  as  the  more  modern  method  of 
investigation. 

When  St.  Thomas  used  the  aphorism,  "  Nothing  at  all 
will  ever  be  reduced  to  nothingness,"  there  was  another 
signification  that  he  attached  to  the  words  quite  as 
clearly  as  that  by  which  they  expressed  the  indestructi- 
bility of  matter.  For  him  nihil  or  nothing  nieant  neither 
matter  nor/orm,  that  is,  neither  the  material  substance 
nor  the  energy  which  is  contained  in  it.  He  meant,  then, 
that  no  energy  would  ever  be  destroyed  as  well  as  no 
matter  would  ever  be  annihilated.  He  was  teaching  the 
conservation  of  energy  as  well  as  the  indestructibility 
of  matter.  Here  once  more  the  experimental  demon- 
stration of  the  doctrine  was  delayed  for  over  six  centu- 
ries and  a  half.  The  truth  itself,  however,  had  been 
reached  by  this  medieval  master-mind,  and  was  the  sub- 
ject of  his  teaching  to  the  university  students  in  Paris 
in  the  thirteenth  century.  These  examples  should,  I 
think,  serve  to  illustrate  that  the  minds  of  medieval 
students  were  occupied  with  practically  the  same  ques- 
tions as  those  which  are  now  taught  to  the  university 
students  of  our  day,  and  that  the  content  of  the  teaching 
was  identical  with  ours. 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  315 

The  scholars  of  the  Middle  Ages  are  usually  said  to 
have  been  profoundly  ignorant  as  regards  the  shape  of 
the  earth,  its  size,  and  the  number  of  its  inhabitants, 
and  to  have  cherished  the  queerest  notions,  when  they 
really  permitted  themselves  any  ideas  at  all,  as  to  the  anti- 
podes. This  is  very  true  if  the  ideas  of  the  ignorant 
masses  of  the  people  and  the  second-rate  authors  and 
thinkers  be  taken  as  the  standard  of  medieval  thought. 
Unfortunately,  such  sources  as  these  have  only  too  often 
served  as  authorities  for  modern  historians  of  education 
and  modern  essayists  on  the  history  of  science.  This  state 
of  affairs  would  painfully  suggest  the  curiously  inverted 
notion  of  the  supposed  ideas  entertained  with  regard  to 
science  in  our  day,  that  would  be  obtained  by  some  thir- 
tieth century  student,  were  he  to  judge  our  scientific 
opinions  from  some  of  the  queer  books  written  by  pre- 
tentiously ignorant  writers,  who  have  pet  scientific 
hobbies  of  their  own  and  exploit  them  at  the  expense  of 
a  long-suffering  world,  if  by  some  accident  of  fortune 
these  books  should  be  preserved  and  the  really  great 
contributions  to  science  be  either  actually  lost  or  lost  to 
sight.  It  is  from  Albert  the  Great  and  such  men,  and 
not  from  their  petty  contemporaries,  that  the  true  spirit 
of  the  science  of  the  age  must  be  deduced.  Albert's 
biographer  said  : 

"  He  treats  as  fabulous  the  commonly-received  idea,  in 
which  Venerable  Bede  had  acquiesced,  that  the  region 
of  the  earth  south  of  the  equator  was  uninhabitable,  and 
considers,  that  from  the  equator  to  the  South  Pole,  ^  the 
earth  was  not  only  habitable,  but  in  all  probability 
actually  inhabited,  except  directly  at  the  poles,  where 
he  imagines  the  cold  to  be  excessive.  If  there  be  any 
animals  there,  he  says,  they  must  have  very  thick  skins 
to  defend  them  from  the  rigor  of  the  climate,  and  they 
are  probably  of  a  white  color.  The  intensity  of  cold  is, 


316  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

however,  tempered  by  the  action  of  the  sea.  He  de- 
scribes the  antipodes  and  the  countries  they  comprise, 
and  divides  the  climate  of  the  earth  into  seven  zones. 
He  smiles  with  a  scholar's  freedom  at  the  simplicity  of 
those  who  suppose  that  persons  living  at  the  opposite 
region  of  the  earth  must  fall  off,  an  opinion  that  can 
only  rise  out  of  the  grossest  ignorance,  'for  when  we 
speak  of  the  lower  hemisphere,  this  must  be  understood 
merely  as  relatively  to  ourselves. ' 

"It  is  as  a  geographer  that  Albert's  superiority  to  the 
writers  of  his  own  time  chiefly  appears.  Bearing  in 
mind  the  astonishing  ignorance  which  then  prevailed  on 
this  subject,  it  is  truly  admirable  to  find  him  correctly 
tracing  the  chief  mountain  chains  of  Europe,  with  the 
rivers  which  take  their  source  in  each  ;  remarking  on 
portions  of  coast  which  have  in  later  times  been  sub- 
merged by  the  ocean,  and  islands  which  have  been  raised 
by  volcanic  action  above  the  level  of  the  sea  ;  noticing 
the  modification  of  climate  caused  by  mountains,  seas 
and  forests,  and  the  division  of  the  human  race,  whose 
differences  he  ascribes  to  the  effect  upon  them  of  the 
countries  they  inhabit.  In  speaking  of  the  British  Isles, 
he  alludes  to  the  commonly-received  idea  that  another 
distant  island  called  Thile,  or  Thule,  existed  far  in  the 
Western  Ocean,  uninhabitable  by  reason  of  its  frightful 
climate,  but  which,  he  says,  has  perhaps  not  yet  been 
visited  by  man." 

In  only  needs  to  be  said  in  addition  to  this,  that  Albert 
had  more  than  a  vague  hint  of  the  possible  existence  of 
land  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe.  He  gives  an  elabo- 
rate demonstration  of  the  sphericity  of  the  earth,  and  it 
has  been  suggested  by  more  than  one  scholar  that  his 
views  on  this  subject  led  eventually  to  the  discovery  of 
America. 

Humboldt,  the  distinguished  German  natural  philoso- 
pher of  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  who 
was  undoubtedly  the  most  important  figure  in  scientific 
thought  in  his  own  time,  and  whose  own  work  was  great 
enough  to  have  an  enduring  influence  even  down  to  our 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  317 

day,  in  spite  of  the  immense  progress  made  during  the 
nineteenth  century,  has  praised  Albert's  work  very 
highly.  Almost  needless  to  say,  Humboldt  was  possessed 
of  a  thorough  critical  faculty  and  had  a  very  wide  range 
of  knowledge,  so  that  he  was  in  an  eminently  proper 
position  to  judge  of  Albert's  work.  He  has  summed  up 
his  appreciation  briefly  as  follows  : 

' '  Albertus  Magnus  was  equally  active  and  influential 
in  promoting  the  study  of  natural  science  and  of  the 
Aristotelian  philosophy.  His  works  contain  some  ex- 
ceedingly acute  remarks  on  the  organic  structure  and 
physiology  of  plants.  One  of  his  works,  bearing  the 
title  of  '  Liber  Cosmographicus  de  Natura  Locorum, '  is 
a  species  of  physical  geography.  I  have  found  in  it  con- 
siderations on  the  dependence  of  temperature  concur- 
rently on  latitude  and  elevation,  and  on  the  effect  of 
different  angles  of  incidence  of  the  sun's  rays  in  heating 
the  ground,  which  have  excited  my  surprise." 

I  have  thought  that  perhaps  the  best  way  to  bring  out 
properly  Albert's  knowledge  in  the  physical  sciences 
would  be  to  take  up  Humboldt 's  headings  in  their  order 
and  illustrate  them  by  quotations  from  the  great  schol- 
ar's writings— the  only  scholar  to  whom  the  epithet  has 
been  applied  in  all  history— and  from  condensed  accounts 
as  they  appear  in  his  life  written  by  Sighart.1  These 
will  serve  to  show  at  once  the  extent  of  Albert's  knowl- 
edge and  the  presumptuous  ignorance  of  those  who  make 
little  of  the  science  of  the  medieval  period. 

When  we  have  catalogued,  for  instance,  the  many 
facts  with  regard  to  astronomy  and  the  physics  of  light 
that  are  supposed  to  be  of  much  later  entrance  into  the 
sphere  of  human  knowledge  that  were  grasped  by  Al- 

1  Sighart,  Albertus  Magnus :  Sein  Leben  und  Seine  Wisenschaft,  Ratisbon. 
1857,  or  its  translation  by  Dixon ;  Albert  the  Great,  his  life  and  scholastic  labors. 
London,  1870. 


318  THE    POPES  AND    SCIENCE 

bert,  and  evidently  formed  the  subject  of  his  teaching 
at  various  times  at  both  Paris  and  Cologne,  since  they 
are  found  in  his  authentic  works,  we  can  scarcely  help 
but  be  amused  at  the  pretentious  lack  of  knowledge  that 
has  relegated  their  author  to  a  place  in  education  so 
trivial  as  is  that  which  is  represented  in  many  minds  by 
the  term  scholastic. 

"  He  decides  that  the  Milky  Way  is  nothing  but  a  vast 
assemblage  of  stars,  but  supposed,  naturally  enough, 
that  they  occupy  the  orbit  which  receives  the  light  of 
the  sun.  The  figures  visible  on  the  moon's  disc  are  not, 
he  says,  as  hitherto  has  been  supposed,  reflections  of  the 
seas  and  mountains  of  the  earth,  but  configurations  of 
her  own  surface.  He  notices,  in  order  to  correct  it,  the 
assertions  of  Aristotle  that  lunar  rainbows  appear  only 
twice  in  fifty  years  ;  '  I  myself, '  he  says,  '  have  observed 
two  in  a  single  year. '  He  has  something  to  say  on  the 
refraction  of  a  solar  ray,  notices  certain  crystals  which 
have  a  power  of  refraction,  and  remarks  that  none  of 
the  ancients  and  few  moderns  were  acquainted  with  the 
properties  of  mirrors." 

Botany  is  supposed  to  be  a  very  modern  science,  and 
to  most  people  Humboldt's  expression  that  he  found  in 
Albertus  Magnus's  writings  some  "  exceedingly  acute 
remarks  on  the  organic  structure  and  physiology  of 
plants,"  will  come  as  an  supreme  surprise.  A  few  de- 
tails with  regard  to  Albert's  botanical  knowledge,  how- 
ever, will  serve  to  heighten  that  surprise,  and  to  show 
that  the  foolish  tirades  of  modern  sciolists,  who  have 
often  expressed  their  wonder  that  with  all  the  beauties 
of  nature  around  them  these  scholars  of  the  Middle  Ages 
did  not  devote  themselves  to  nature  study,  are  absurd  ; 
because  if  the  critics  but  knew  it,  there  was  profound 
interest  in  nature  and  all  her  manifestations,  and  a  series 
of  discoveries  that  anticipated  not  a  little  of  what  we 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  319 

consider  most  important  in  our  modern  science.  The 
story  of  Albert's  botanical  knowledge  has  been  told  in  a 
single  very  full  paragraph  by  his  biographer.  Sighart  also 
quotes  an  appreciative  opinion  from  a  modern  German 
botanist,  which  will  serve  to  dispel  any  doubts  with  re- 
gard to  Albert's  position  in  botany  that  modern  students 
might  perhaps  continue  to  harbor,  unless  they  had  good 
authority  to  support  their  opinion,  though,  of  course,  it 
will  be  remembered  that  the  main  difference  between 
the  medieval  and  the  modern  mind  is  only  too  often  said 
to  be  that  the  medieval  required  an  authority,  while  the 
modern  makes  its  opinion  for  itself.  Even  the  most 
skeptical  of  modern  minds,  however,  will  probably  be 
satisfied  by  the  following  paragraph : 

"He  was  acquainted  with  the  sleep  of  plants,  with 
the  periodical  opening  and  closing  of  blossoms,  with 
the  diminution  of  sap  through  evaporation  from  the 
cuticle  of  the  leaves,  and  with  the  influence  of  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  bundles  of  vessels  on  the  folial  indenta- 
tions. His  minute  observations  on  the  forms  and  variety 
of  plants  intimate  an  exquisite  sense  of  floral  beauty. 
He  distinguished  the  star  from  the  bell-floral,  tells  us 
that  a  red  rose  will  turn  white  when  submitted  to  the 
vapor  of  sulphur,  and  makes  some  very  sagacious  ob- 
servations on  the  subject  of  germination.  .  .  .  The 
extraordinary  erudition  and  originality  of  this  treatise 
(his  tenth  book)  has  drawn  from  M.  Meyer  the  follow- 
ing comment :  '  No  botanist  who  lived  before  Albert  can 
be  compared  to  him,  unless  Theophrastus,  with  whom 
he  was  not  acquainted  ;  and  after  him  none  has  painted 
nature  in  such  living  colors  or  studied  it  so  profoundly 
until  the  time  of  Conrad  Gesner  and  CaBsalpinp.'  All 
honor,  then,  to  the  man  who  made  such  astonishing  pro- 
gress in  the  science  of  nature  as  to  find  no  one,  I  will 
not  say  to  surpass,  but  even  to  equal  him  for  the  space 
of  three  centuries." 

Pagel  in  Puschmann's  History  of  Medicine  gives  a  list 


320  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

of  the  books  written  by  Albert  which  are  concerned 
with  the  physical  sciences.  These  were :  Physica, 
Books  VIII. ,  that  is,  eight  treatises  on  Natural 
Science,  consisting  of  commentaries  on  Aristotle's 
Physics  and  on  the  underlying  principles  of  natural 
philosophy,  and  of  energy  and  movement ;  four  treatises 
concerning  the  Heavens  and  the  Earth,  which  contain 
the  general  principles  of  the  movement  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  Besides  there  is  a  treatise  On  the  Nature  of 
Places,  consisting  of  a  description  of  climates  and  natu- 
ral conditions.  This  volume  contains,  according  to  Pagel, 
numerous  suggestions  with  regard  to  ethnography  and 
physiology.  There  is  a  treatise  on  the  causes  of  the 
properties  of  the  elements,  which  takes  up  the  specific 
peculiarities  of  the  elements,  according  to  their  physical 
and  geographical  relations.  To  which  must  be  added 
two  treatises  on  generation  and  corruption  ;  six  books  on 
meteors ;  five  books  on  minerals ;  three  books  on  the 
soul,  in  which  is  considered  the  vital  principle ;  a  treatise 
on  nutrition  and  nutritives ;  a  treatise  on  the  senses ; 
another  on  the  memory  and  the  imagination  ;  two  books 
on  the  intellect;  a  treatise  on  sleep  and  waking;  a 
treatise  on  youth  and  old  age  ;  a  treatise  on  breath  and 
respiration  ;  a  treatise  on  the  motion  of  animals,  in  two 
books,  which  concerns  the  voluntary  and  involuntary 
movements  of  animals  ;  a  treatise  on  life  and  death  ;  a 
treatise  in  six  books  on  vegetables  and  plants  ;  a  treatise 
on  breathing  things.  His  treatise  on  minerals  contains, 
according  to  Pagel,  besides  an  extensive  presentation  of 
the  ordinary  peculiarities  of  minerals,  a  description  of 
ninety-five  different  kinds  of  precious  stones,  among 
them  the  pearl,  of  seven  metals,  of  salt,  vitriol,  alum, 
arsenic,  marcasite,  nitre,  tutia,  and  amber.  Albert's 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  321 

volumes  on  the  vegetables  and  plants  were  reproduced 
under  the  editorship  of  Meyer,  the  historian  of  botany 
in  Germany,  and  published  in  Berlin  (1867) .  All  Albert's 
books  are  available  in  modern  editions. 

In  a  word,  there  was  scarcely  a  subject  in  natural 
science  which  Albert  did  not  treat,  in  what  would  now 
be  considered  a  formal  serious  volume,  and  no  depart- 
ment of  science  that  he  did  not  illuminate  in  some  way,  not 
only  by  the  collection  of  information  that  had  previously 
been  in  existence,  but  also  by  his  own  observations,  and 
especially  by  his  interpretations  of  the  significance  of 
the  various  phenomena  that  had  been  observed.  His 
work  is  especially  noteworthy  for  its  lack  of  dependence 
on  authority  and  the  straightforward  way  in  which 
the  great  pioneer  of  modern  science  made  his  ob- 
servations. 

Some  of  Albert's  contemporaries,  and  especially  his 
pupils,  were  almost  as  distinguished  as  he  was  himself 
in  the  physical  sciences. 

In  a  previous  chapter  we  spoke  particularly  of  Roger 
Bacon's  attitude  toward  the  physical  sciences,  above  all 
in  what  concerns  the  experimental  method.  He  was 
typically  modern  in  the  standpoint  that  he  assumed,  as 
the  only  one  by  which  knowledge  of  the  things  of  nature 
can  be  obtained.  It  will  be  interesting  now  to  see  the 
number  of  things  which  Friar  Bacon  succeeded  in  dis- 
covering by  the  application  of  the  principle  of  testing 
everything  by  personal  observation,  of  not  accepting 
things  on  second-hand  authorities,  and  of  not  being 
afraid  to  say,  "I  do  not  know,"  in  trying  to  learn  for 
himself.  His  discoveries  will  seem  almost  incredible  to 
a  modern  student  of  science  and  of  education  who  has 
known  nothing  before  of  the  progress  of  science  made 


322  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

by  this  wonderful  man,  or  who  has  known  only  vaguely 
that  Friar  Bacon  was  a  great  original  thinker  in  science, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  his  life-history  is  bounded  by 
the  thirteenth  century.  I  may  say  that  the  material  of 
what  I  have  to  say  of  him,  and  also  of  his  great  con- 
temporaries, Albertus  Magnus  and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
is  taken  almost  literally  from  the  chapter  of  my  book, 
The  Thirteenth  Greatest  of  Centuries,  on  What  They 
Studied  at  the  Universities. 

Roger  Bacon  has  been  declared  to  be  the  discoverer 
of  gunpowder,  but  this  is  a  mistake,  since  it  was  known 
many  years  before  by  the  Arabs  and  by  them  introduced 
into  Europe.  He  did  study  explosives  very  deeply,  how- 
ever, and  besides  learning  many  things  about  them, 
realized  how  much  might  be  accomplished  by  their  use 
in  the  after-time.  He  declares  in  his  Opus  Magnum : 
''That  one  may  cause  to  burst  forth  from  bronze,  thun- 
derbolts more  formidable  that  those  produced  by  nature. 
A  small  quantity  of  prepared  matter  occasions  a  terrible 
explosion  accompanied  by  a  brilliant  light.  One  may 
multiply  this  phenomenon  so  far  as  to  destroy  a  city  or  an 
army."  Considering  how  little  was  know  about  gun- 
powder at  this  time,  this  was  of  itself  a  marvelous  an- 
ticipation of  what  might  be  accomplished  by  it. 

Bacon  anticipated,  however,  much  more  than  merely 
destructive  effects  from  the  use  of  high  explosives,  and 
indeed  it  is  almost  amusing  to  see  how  closely  he  antic- 
ipated some  of  the  most  modern  usages  of  high  ex- 
plosives for  motor  purposes.  He  seems  to  have  realized 
that  some  time  the  apparently  uncontrollable  forces  of 
explosion  would  come  under  the  control  of  man  and  be 
harnessed  by  him  for  his  own  purposes.  He  foresaw 
that  one  of  the  great  applications  of  such  a  force  would 
be  for  transportation.  Accordingly  he  said :  "Art  can 
construct  instruments  of  navigation  such  that  the  largest 
vessels,  governed  by  a  single  man,  will  traverse  rivers 
and  seas  more  rapidly  than  if  they  were  filled  with  oars- 
men. One  may  also  make  carriages  which  without  the 
aid  of  any  animal  will  run  with  remarkable  swiftness." 


CHURCHMEN'   AND    SCIENCE  323 

When  we  recall  that  the  very  latest  thing  in  transporta- 
tion are  motor-boats  and  automobiles  driven  by  gasoline, 
a  high  explosive,  Roger  Bacon's  prophecy  becomes  one  of 
those  weird  anticipations  of  human  progress  which  seem 
almost  more  than  human. 

It  was  not  with  regard  to  explosives  alone,  however, 
that  Roger  Bacon  was  to  make  great  advances  and  still 
more  marvelous  anticipations  in  physical  science.  He 
was  not,  as  is  sometimes  claimed  for  him,  either  the  in- 
ventor of  the  telescope  or  of  the  theory  of  lenses.  He 
did  more,  however,  than  perhaps  anyone  else  to  make 
the  principles  of  lenses  clear  and  to  establish  them  on  a 
mathematical  basis.  His  traditional  connection  with  the 
telescope  can  probably  be  traced  to  the  fact  that  he  was 
very  much  interested  in  astronomy  and  the  relations  of 
the  heavens  to  the  earth.  He  pointed  out  very  clearly 
the  errors  which  had  crept  into  the  Julian  calendar,  cal- 
culated exactly  how  much  of  a  correction  was  needed  in 
order  to  restore  the  year  to  its  proper  place,  and  sug- 
gested the  method  by  which  future  errors  of  this  kind 
could  be  avoided.  His  ideas  were  too  far  beyond  his 
century  to  be  applied  practically,  but  they  were  not  to 
be  without  their  effect,  and  it  is  said  that  they  formed 
the  basis  of  the  subsequent  correction  of  the  calendar 
in  the  time  of  Pope  Gregory  XIII. ,  about  three  cen- 
turies later. 

It  is  rather  surprising  to  find  how  much  besides  the 
theory  of  lenses  Friar  Bacon  had  succeeded  in  finding 
out  in  the  department  of  optics.  He  taught,  for  in- 
stance, the  principle  of  the  aberration  of  light,  and,  still 
more  marvelous  to  consider,  taught  that  light  did  not 
travel  instantaneously,  but  had  a  definite  rate  of  motion, 
though  this  was  extremely  rapid.  It  is  rather  difficult 
to  understand  how  he  reached  this  conclusion,  since 
light  travels  so  fast  that,  as  far  as  regards  any  observa- 
tion that  can  be  made  upon  earth,  the  diffusion  is  prac- 
tically instantaneous.  It  was  not  for  over  three  cen- 
turies later  that  Ropier,  the  German  astronomer,  de- 
monstrated the  motion  of  light  and  its  rate  by  his  ob- 
servations upon  the  moons  of  Jupiter  at  different  phases 
of  the  earth's  orbit,  which  showed  that  the  light  of  these 
moons  took  a  definite  and  quite  appreciable  time  to  reach 
the  earth  after  their  eclipse  "by  the  planet  was  over. 


324  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Albertus  Magnus's  other  great  pupil  besides  Roger 
Bacon  was  St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  If  any  suspicion  were  still 
left  that  Thomas  did  not  appreciate  just  what  the  sig- 
nificance of  his  teachings  in  physics  was,  when  he  an- 
nounced that  neither  matter  nor  force  could  ever  be  re- 
duced to  nothingness,  it  would  surely  be  removed  by  the 
consideration  that  he  had  been  for  many  years  in  intim- 
ate relations  with  Albert,  and  that  he  had  probably 
also  been  close  to  Roger  Bacon.  In  association  with  such 
men  as  these,  he  was  not  likely  to  stumble  upon  truths 
unawares,  even  though  they  might  concern  physical  sci- 
ence. St.  Thomas  himself  has  left  three  treatises  on 
chemical  subjects,  and  it  is  said  that  the  first  occurrence 
of  the  word  amalgam  can  be  traced  to  one  of  these 
treatises.  Everybody  was  as  much  interested  then,  as 
we  are  at  the  present  time,  in  the  transformation  of 
metals  and  mercury  with  its  silvery  sheen ;  its  facility 
to  enter  into  metallic  combinations  of  all  kinds,  and  its 
elusive  ways,  naturally  made  it  the  center  of  scientific 
interest  quite  as  radium  is  at  the  present  moment. 

These  three  men,  Albertus  Magnus,  Thomas  Aquinas, 
and  Roger  Bacon,  were  all  closely  associated  with  ec- 
clesiastical authorities,  and  indeed  all  three  of  them  had 
intimate  personal  relations  with  the  Popes  of  their  time. 
Albertus  Magnus  had  been  highly  honored  by  the  Dom- 
inican Order,  to  which  he  belonged.  He  had  been  chosen 
as  Provincial— that  is,  the  superior  of  a  number  of  houses 
—in  the  German  part  of  Europe  at  least  once,  and  he  had 
been  constantly  appealed  to  by  his  superiors  for  advice 
and  counsel.  Although  it  was  almost  a  rule  that  mem- 
bers of  religious  orders  should  not  be  chosen  as  bishops, 
he  was  made  Bishop  of  Ratisbon,  and  his  appointment 
was  considered  to  be  due  to  his  surpassing  merit  as  a 
great  scholar  and  teacher.  In  spite  of  his  devotion  to 
scientific  studies  during  a  long  life,  he  lost  nothing  of 
the  ardor  of  his  faith,  and  is  universally  considered  to 
have  been  a  saint.  He  has  been  formally  raised  to  the 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  325 

altars  of  the  Catholic  Church,  as  the  expression  is— that 
is,  he  had  the  title  of  "  Blessed  "  conferred  on  him,  and 
his  prayers  may  be  invoked  as  one  of  those  who  are  con- 
sidered to  stand  high  in  the  favor  of  Heaven. 

Of  Thomas  Aquinas  the  same  story  may  be  told  only 
in  much  more  emphatic  words.  He  was  honored  by  his 
own  order,  the  Dominican,  in  many  ways.  Early  in  his 
life  they  recognized  his  talent  and  sent  him  to  Cologne 
to  study  under  the  great  Albert.  When  the  Dominicans 
realized  the  necessity  for  not  only  making  a  significant 
exhibition  of  the  talents  of  their  order  at  the  University 
of  Paris,  which  had  become  the  most  prominent  educa- 
tional institution  in  the  world,  but  also  wished  to  influence 
as  deeply  as  possible  the  cause  of  education,  Albert  was 
sent  to  Paris,  and  Thomas  Aquinas  accompanied  him. 
When  there  were  difficulties  between  Dominicans  and 
the  university,  it  was  to  Thomas  that  his  order  turned 
to  defend  them  and  maintain  their  rights.  He  did  so 
not  only  with  intellectual  acumen,  but  with  great  tact 
and  successfully.  After  this  he  was  sent  on  business  of 
his  order  to  England  and  was  for  some  time  at  Oxford. 
His  reputation  as  a  philosopher  and  a  scientist  had  now 
spread  over  the  world  and  he  was  invited  to  teach  at 
various  Italian  universities  where  ecclesiastical  influences 
were  very  strong.  The  Popes  asked,  and  their  request 
was  practically  a  command,  that  he  should  teach  for 
some  time  at  least  at  their  own  university  at  Rome. 
Later  he  taught  also  at  the  University  of  Naples. 

While  here,  one  of  the  Popes  wishing  to  confer  a  su- 
preme mark  of  favor  on  him,  his  name  was  selected  for 
the  vacant  archbishopric  of  Naples.  The  bulls  and  for- 
mal documents  creating  him  Archbisho^were  already  on 
the  way  when  Thomas  was  informed  of  it,  and  he  asked 


326  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

to  be  allowed  to  continue  his  studies  rather  than  to  have 
to  take  up  the  unwonted  duties  of  an  archbishop.  His 
plea  was  evidently  so  sincere  that  the  Pope  relented  and 
respected  Thomas's  humility  and  his  desire  for  leisure 
to  finish  his  great  work,  the  Summa  Theologiae.  He 
continued  to  be  the  great  friend  of  the  Popes  and  their 
special  counsellor.  When  the  Council  of  Lyons  was 
summoned,  a  number  of  important  questions  concerning 
the  most  serious  theological  problems  were  to  be  dis- 
cussed. Thomas  was  asked  to  go  to  Lyons  as  the  theo- 
logian for  the  Papacy.  It  was  while  fulfilling  this  duty 
that  he  came  to  his  death,  at  a  comparatively  early  age, 
though  not  until  the  Council,  consisting  of  the  bishops 
of  all  the  world,  had  shown  their  respect  for  him,  had 
listened  to  his  words  of  wisdom,  and  had  acknowledged 
that  he  was  the  greatest  scholar  of  his  time  and  worthy 
of  the  respect  and  admiration  of  all  of  them.  Because 
of  all  that  his  kindness  to  them  had  meant  for  their  up- 
lift, the  workmen  of  Lyons  craved  and  obtained  the 
permission  to  carry  his  coffin  on  their  shoulders  to  his 
tomb. 

Like  his  great  teacher  Albert,  Thomas  was  respected 
even  more  for  his  piety  than  for  his  learning.  Not  long 
after  his  death,  people  began  to  speak  of  him  as  a  saint. 
Though  he  was  the  most  learned  man  of  his  time,  he  was 
considered  to  have  given  an  example  of  heroic  virtue. 
A  careful  investigation  of  his  life  showed  that  there  was 
nothing  in  it  unworthy  of  the  highest  ideals  as  a  man 
and  a  religious.  Accordingly  he  was  canonized,  and  has 
ever  since  been  considered  the  special  patron,  helper  and 
advocate  of  Catholic  students.  All  down  the  centuries 
his  teaching  has  been  looked  upon  as  the  most  important 
in  the  whole  realm  of  theology.  There  has  never  been 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  327 

a  time  when  his  works  have  not  been  considered  the 
most  authoritative  sources  of  theological  lore.  At  the 
end  of  the  nineteenth  century  Leo  XIII.  crowned  the 
tributes  which  many  Popes  had  conferred  upon  Thomas 
by  selecting  him  as  the  teacher  to  whom  Catholic  schools 
should  ever  turn  by  formulating  the  authoritative  Papal 
opinion— the  nearer  to  Thomas,  the  nearer  to  Catholic 
truth.  When  it  is  recalled  that  this  is  the  man  who  gave 
the  great  modern  impulse  to  the  doctrine  of  matter  and 
form,  who  taught  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  the 
conservation  of  energy,  and  declared  with  St.  Augustine 
that  the  Creator  had  made  only  the  seeds  of  things, 
allowing  these  afterwards  to  develop  for  themselves, 
which  is  the  essence  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  it  is 
hard  to  understand  how  there  should  be  question  of 
opposition  between  the  Church  and  science  in  his  time. 
With  regard  to  the  third  of  these  great  physical  scien- 
tists, the  story  of  his  relation  to  the  ecclesiastical  author- 
ities is  not  quite  so  simple.  Roger  Bacon  was  in  his 
younger  years  very  much  thought  of  by  his  own  order, 
the  Franciscans.  They  sent  him  to  Paris  and  provided 
him  opportunities  to  study  under  the  great  Albert,  and 
then  transferred  him  to  Oxford,  where  he  had  a  magnifi- 
cent opportunity  for  teaching.  Many  years  of  his  life 
were  spent  in  peace  and  happiness  in  the  cloister.  A 
friend  and  fellow  student  at  Paris  became  Pope  Clement, 
and  his  command  was  the  primary  cause  of  the  compo- 
sition of  Bacon's  great  works.  All  three  of  his  books, 
and  especially  the  Opus  Majus,  were  written  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  Pope,  and  were  highly  praised  by  the  Pon- 
tiff himself  and  by  those  who  read  them  in  Rome. 
Unfortunately,  difficulties  occurred  within  Friar  Bacon's 
own  order.  It  is  not  quite  clear  now  just  how  these 


328  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

came  about.  The  Franciscans  of  the  rigid  observance 
of  those  early  times  took  vows  of  the  severest  poverty. 
There  had  been  some  relaxation  of  the  rule,  however, 
and  certain  abuses  crept  in.  The  consequence  was  the 
re-assertion  after  a  time  of  the  original  rule  of  abso- 
lute poverty  in  all  its  stringency.  It  was  Friar  Bacon 
himself  who  had  chosen  this  mode  of  life  and  had  taken 
the  vows  of  poverty.  Paper  was  a  very  dear  commod- 
ity, if  indeed  it  was  invented  early  enough  in  the  cen- 
tury for  him  to  have  used  it.  Vellum  was  even  more 
expensive.  Just  what  material  Bacon  employed  for  his 
writings  is  not  now  known.  Whatever  it  was,  it  seems 
to  have  cost  much  money,  and  because  of  his  violation 
of  his  vow  of  poverty  Roger  Bacon  fell  under  the  ban  of 
his  order.  He  was  ordered  to  be  confined  to  his  cell  in 
the  monastery  and  to  be  fed  on  bread  and  water  for  a 
considerable  period.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this 
was  within  a  century  after  the  foundation  of  the  Fran- 
ciscans, and  to  an  ardent  son  of  St.  Francis  the  living 
on  bread  and  water  would  not  be  a  very  difficult  thing 
at  this  time,  since  his  ordinary  diet  would,  at  least  dur- 
ing certain  portions  of  the  year,  be  scarcely  better  than 
this.  There  is  no  account  of  how  Roger  Bacon  took  his 
punishment.  He  might  easily  have  left  his  order.  There 
were  many  others  at  that  time  who  did.  He  wished  to 
remain  as  a  faithful  son  of  St.  Francis,  and  seems  to 
have  accepted  his  punishment  with  the  idea  that  his  ex- 
ample would  influence  others  of  the-  order  to  submit  to 
the  enforcement  of  the  regulation  with  regard  to  pov- 
erty, which  superiors  now  thought  so  important,  if  the 
original  spirit  of  St.  Francis  was  to  be  regained. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  Friar  Bacon  indulged  in 
scientific  speculations  which  seemed  subversive  of  Chris- 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  329 

tian  mysteries,  and  that  this  was  one  reason  for  his  pun- 
ishment. Recently  he  has  been  declared  the  first  of  the 
modernists  since  he  attempted  to  rationalize  religious 
mysteries.  Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  this,  of  one 
thing  we  are  certain,  that  before  his  death  Bacon  deeply 
regretted  some  of  his  expressions  and  theories,  and  did 
not  hesitate  to  confess  humbly  that  he  was  sorry  to  have 
even  seemed  to  hint  at  supposed  science  contrary  to 
religious  truth. 

Of  course,  it  may  well  be  said,  even  after  all  these 
communities  of  interest  between  the  medieval  and 
the  modern  teaching  of  the  general  principles  of  science 
have  been  pointed  out,  that  the  universities  of  the  Middle 
Ages  did  not  present  the  subjects  under  discussion  in  a 
practical  way,  and  their  teaching  was  not  likely  to  lead 
to  directly  beneficial  results  in  applied  science.  It  might 
well  be  responded  to  this,  that  it  is  not  the  function  of  a 
university  to  teach  applications  of  science,  but  only  the 
great  principles,  the  broad  generalizations  that  underlie 
scientific  thinking,  leaving  details  to  be  filled  in  in  what- 
ever form  of  practical  work  the  man  may  take  up.  Very 
few  of  those,  however,  who  talk  about  the  purely  specu- 
lative character  of  medieval  teaching,  have  manifestly 
ever  made  it  their  business  to  know  anything  about  the  ac- 
tual facts  of  old-time  university  teaching  by  definite  knowl- 
edge, but  have  rather  allowed  themselves  to  be  guided 
by  speculation  and  by  inadequate  second-hand  author- 
ities, whose  dicta  they  have  never  taken  the  trouble  to 
substantiate  by  a  glance  at  contemporary  authorities  on 
medieval  matters,  much  less  by  reading  the  old  scholas- 
tics themselves. 

How  much  was  accomplished  in  applied  science  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  that  is,  in  those  departments  of  science 


330  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

which  are  usually  supposed  to  have  been  least  cultivated, 
since  educators  are  prone  to  ridicule  the  over-emphasis  of 
speculation  in  education  and  the  constant  preoccupation 
of  mind  of  the  scholars  of  these  generations  with  merely 
theoretic  questions,  may  be  appreciated  from  any  history 
of  the  arts  and  architecture  during  the  thirteenth,  four- 
teenth, and  fifteenth  centuries.  Some  of  the  most  diffi- 
cult problems  in  mechanics  as  applied  to  the  structural 
work  of  cathedrals,  palaces,  castles,  fortresses,  and 
bridges,  were  solved  with  a  success  that  was  only  equaled 
by  the  audacity  with  which  they  were  attempted.  Men 
hesitated  at  nothing.  There  is  no  problem  of  mechani- 
cal engineering  as  applied  to  structural  work  which 
these  men  did  not  find  an  answer  for  in  their  wonderful 
buildings.  This  has  been  very  well  brought  out  by 
Prince  Kropotkin  in  certain  chapters  of  his  book,  Mutual 
Aid  a  Factor  of  Evolution,1  in  which  he  treats  of  mutual 
aid  in  the  medieval  cities.  He  says  : 

"At  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century  the  towns 
of  Europe  were  small  clusters  of  miserable  huts,  adorned 
with  but  low  clumsy  churches,  the  builders  of  which 
hardly  knew  how  to  make  an  arch  ;  the  arts,  mostly  con- 
sisting of  some  weaving  and  forging,  were  in  their  in- 
fancy ;  learning  was  found  in  but  a  few  monasteries. 
Three  hundred  and  fifty  years  later,  the  very  face  of 
Europe  had  Been  changed.  The  land  was  dotted  with 
rich  cities,  surrounded  by  immense  thick  walls  which 
were  embellished  by  towers  and  gates,  each  of  them  a 
work  of  art  itself.  The  cathedrals,  conceived  in  a  grand 
style  and  profusely  decorated,  lifted  their  bell-towers  to 
the  skies,  displaying  a  purity  of  form  and  a  boldness  of 
imagination  which  we  now  vainly  strive  to  attain.  The 

1  New  York,  McClure,  Philips  &  Co.,  1902. 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  331 

crafts  and  arts  had  risen  to  a  degree  of  perfection  which 
we  can  hardly  boast  of  having  superseded  in  many  di- 
rections, if  the  inventive  skill  of  the  worker  and  the 
superior  finish  of  his  work  be  appreciated  higher  than 
rapidity  of  fabrication.  The  navies  of  the  free  cities 
furrowed  in  all  directions  the  Northern  Seas  and  the 
Southern  Mediterranean  ;  one  effort  more  and  they  would 
cross  the  oceans.  Over  large  tracts  of  land,  well-being 
had  taken  the  place  of  misery  ;  learning  had  grown  and 
spread ;  the  methods  of  science  had  been  elaborated ; 
the  basis  of  natural  philosophy  had  been  laid  down  ;  and 
the  way  had  been  paved  for  all  the  mechanical  inven- 
tions of  which  our  own  times  are  so  proud. " 

The  period  for  which  Prince  Kropotkin  is  thus  enthu- 
siastic in  the  matter  of  applied  science,  is  all  before  the 
date  usually  given  as  the  beginning  of  the  Renaissance— 
the  fall  of  Constantinople  in  1453.  The  three  centuries 
and  a  half  from  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century 
represent  just  the  time  of  the  rise  of  scholasticism  and 
the  beginning  of  its  decline.  Few  periods  of  history  are 
so  maligned  as  regards  their  intellectual  feebleness,  and 
in  nothing  is  that  quality  supposed  to  be  more  marked 
than  in  applied  science  ;  yet  here  is  what  a  special  stu- 
dent of  the  time  says  of  this  very  period  in  this  par- 
ticular department. 

Kropotkin  has  shown  just  what  were  the  limitations 
of  scientific  progress  in  the  Middle  Ages  while  empha- 
sizing how  much  these  wonderful  generations  accom- 
plished. In  this  I  am  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  he 
does  not  allow  as  much  to  the  Middle  Ages  as  he  should. 
I  have  been  able  to  point  out,  I  think,  in  this  chapter 
many  evidences  of  important  principles  in  science  that 
were  fully  reached  during  the  Middle  Ages.  Because  of 


332  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

his  more  conservative  opinion  in  this  matter,  however, 
Kropotkin's  opinion  should  carry  all  the  more  weight 
with  those  who  are  now  called  upon  to  realize  for  the 
first  time,  how  much  these  despised  generations  accom- 
plished in  matters  that  were  to  prove  a  precious  heritage 
for  subsequent  generations,  and  the  foundation-stones 
of  that  great  edifice  of  science  which  has  been  built  up 
in  more  recent  years.  Kropotkin  says  : 

' '  True  that  no  new  principle  was  illustrated  by  any  of 
these  discoveries,  as  Whewell  said  ;  but  medieval  science 
had  done  something  more  than  the  actual  discovery  of 
new  principles.  It  had  prepared  the  discovery  of  all  the 
new  principles  which  we  know  at  the  present  time  in 
mechanical  sciences  ;  it  had  accustomed  the  explorer  to 
observe  facts  and  to  reason  from  them.  It  had  induc- 
tive science,  even  though  it  had  not  yet  fully  grasped 
the  importance  and  the  powers  of  induction  ;  and  it  had 
laid  the  foundations  of  both  mechanical  and  natural 
philosophy.  Francis  Bacon,  Galileo,  and  Copernicus 
were  the  direct  descendants  of  a  Roger  Bacon  and  a 
Michael  Scot,  as  the  steam  engine  was  a  direct  product 
of  the  researches  carried  on  in  the  Italian  universities 
on  the  weight  of  the  atmosphere,  and  of  the  mathematical 
and  technical  learning  which  characterized  Nuremberg. 

But  why  should  one  take  trouble  to  .insist  upon  the 
advance  of  science  and  art  in  the  medieval  city  ?  Is  it 
not  enough  to  point  to  the  cathedrals  in  the  domain  of 
skill,  and  to  the  Italian  language  and  the  poem  of  Dante 
in  the  domain  of  thought,  to  give  at  once  the  measure 
of  what  the  medieval  city  created  during  the  four  cen- 
turies it  lived  ?" 

We  are  prone  to  think  of  evolution  in  human  affairs 
as  being  the  ruling  principle.  As  a  consequence  of  this, 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  333 

we  are  apt  to  consider  that  since  intervening  periods  be- 
tween the  nineteenth  century  and  the  Middle  Ages  were 
lacking  in  education,  in  applied  science,  and  in  interest 
in  physical  science  to  a  great  degree,  beyond  doubt,  then, 
the  Middle  Ages  must  have  been  still  more  lacking  in  these 
desirable  qualities  of  education  and  human  knowledge. 
This  is  the  sort  of  deduction  that  greets  one  constantly 
in  so-called  histories  of  education,  and  especially  in  such 
supposed  contributions  to  the  history  of  the  relationship 
of  science  to  religion  or  theology  as  have  been  made  here 
in  America.  This  deduction,  as  I  have  said  before,  is 
made  by  men  who  are  the  first  to  asperse  the  medieval 
scholars  for  having  used  deduction  too  freely,  and  who 
are  ever  ready  to  praise  induction.  The  induction  in 
this  matter— that  is,  the  story  of  the  actual  history  of 
science  in  the  Middle  Ages— is  the  direct  contradiction 
of  the  deduction  from  false  principles.  Intervening 
centuries  not  only  failed  to  progress  beyond  the  Middle 
Ages,  but  some  of  them  were  far  behind  the  achieve- 
ments of  that  unfortunately  despised  period.  Once 
more  Prince  Kropotkin  has  touched  this  matter  very 
suggestively.  After  describing  the  achievements  of 
applied  science  in  the  Middle  Ages,  he  says  : 

' '  Such  were  the  magic  changes  accomplished  in  Europe 
in  less  than  four  hundred  years.  And  the  losses  which 
Europe  sustained  through  the  loss  of  its  free  cities  can 
only  be  understood  when  we  compare  the  seventeenth 
century  with  the  fourteenth  or  thirteenth.  The  pros- 
perity which  formerly  characterized  Scotland,  Germany, 
the  plains  of  Italy,  was  gone.  The  roads  had  fallen  into 
an  abject  state,  the  cities  were  depopulated,  labor  was 
brought  into  slavery,  art  had  vanished,  commerce  itself 
was  decaying." 


334  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

In  the  meantime  the  reformation  so-called  had  come, 
and  had  carried  away  with  it  in  its  course  nearly  every- 
thing precious  that  men  had  gained  during  the  four  cen- 
turies immediately  preceding.  Art,  education,  science, 
liberty,  democracy— everything  worth  while  had  been 
hurt ;  most  of  them  had  been  ruined  for  the  time.  Even 
the  nineteenth  century  did  not  succeed  in  bringing  us 
back  to  a  level  with  the  earlier  centuries  in  all  the  intel- 
lectual and  esthetic  accomplishments. 

Another  striking  evidence  of  the  deep  interest  of  these 
generations  in  science  of  all  kinds  and  in  details  of  in- 
formation with  regard  to  which  they  are  generally  said 
to  have  been  quite  incurious,  was  the  publication  of  the 
famous  encyclopedia,  the  first  work  of  its  kind  ever  is- 
sued, which  was  written  about  the  middle  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  by  Vincent  of  Beauvais.  It  is  only  when 
a  generation  actually  calls  for  it,  and  when  the  want  of 
it  has  been  for  a  good  while  felt,  that  such  a  work  is 
likely  to  be  undertaken.  This  immense  literary  under- 
taking was  completed  under  the  patronage  of  King- 
Louis  IX.  by  Vincent,  a  Dominican  friar,  who  died  at 
the  beginning  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury. His  Majus  Speculum  is  not  the  first  book  of  general 
information,  but  it  is  the  first  deserving  the  name  of 
Encyclopedia  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word  that  we  have. 
It  is  divided  into  three  parts— the  Speculum  Naturale, 
Doctrinale,  and  Historiale.  The  only  one  which  interests 
us  here  is  the  Speculum  Naturale,  which  fills  a  huge  folia 
volume  of  nearly  a  thousand  pages,  closely  printed  in 
double  columns.  It  is  divided  into  32  books  and  some 
4,000  chapters.  The  Encyclopaedia  Brittanica  says 
of  it  :— 

"It  was,  as  it  were,  the  great  temple  of  medieval 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  335 

science,  whose  floor  and  walls  are  inlaid  with  an  enor- 
mous mosaic  of  skilfully  arranged  passages  from  Latin, 
Greek,  Arabic,  and  even  Hebrew  authors.  To  each  quo- 
tation, as  he  borrows  it,  Vincent  prefixes  the  name  of 
the  book  and  the  author  from  which  it  is  taken,  dis- 
tinguishing, however,  his  own  remarks  by  the  word 
'  actor/  " 

The  interest  aroused  by  Vincent's  compilation  outside 
of  professional  and  educational  circles  strictly  so-called, 
can  be  very  well  appreciated  from  the  fact  that,  besides 
King  Louis's  interest,  his  Queen  Margaret,  their  son 
Philip  and  son-in-law,  King  Theobald  V.,  of  Champagne 
and  Navarre,  were,  according  to  tradition,  among  those 
who  encouraged  him  in  the  work  and  aided  him  in  bear- 
ing the  expenses  of  it.  It  is  rather  curious  to  find  that 
the  method  of  compilation  was  nearly  the  same  as  that 
employed  at  the  present  day.  Young  men,  mainly 
members  of  Vincent's  own  order  of  the  Dominicans, 
were  engaged  in  collecting  the  material,  collating  refer- 
ences, and  verifying  quotations.  The  main  burden  of 
the  work,  however,  fell  upon  Vincent  himself,  and  he 
accordingly  deserves  the  reputation  for  wonderful  in- 
dustry which  he  has  enjoyed.  Much  as  he  wrote,  how- 
ever, it  does  not  exceed  much  in  amount  what  was 
written  by  others  of  the  great  scholastics,  and  theirs 
was  original  material  and  not  merely  the  collection  of 
information. 

If  we  had  no  other  evidence  of  interest  in  nature  and 
in  natural  science  than  this  great  work  of  Vincent  of 
Beauvais,  it  would  be  ample  to  show  the  absurdity  of 
the  general  impression  that  exists  in  the  minds  of  most 
scientists,  and,  unfortunately,  also  in  the  minds  of  many 
educators,  with  regard  to  the  barrenness  of  interest  of 


336  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

the  Middle  Age  in  natural  phenomena.  It  might  easily 
be  imagined  that  this  work  of  Vincent  would  have  very 
little  of  interest  for  a  modern  scientist.  Any  such  anti- 
cipation is  entirely  due,  however,  to  the  false  impression 
that  exists  with  regard  to  the  supposed  ridiculously  ab- 
surd views  in  matters  of  science  entertained  by  the 
medieval  scholars.  Those  who  do  not  take  their  opinions 
on  theory,  but  actually  consult  the  books  with  regard  to 
which  they  are  ready  to  express  themselves,  have  no 
such  opinion.  There  has  been  much  more  interest  in  this 
class  of  books  and  in  the  scientific  side  of  the  literature 
of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  during  the 
last  few  years,  and  the  consequence  has  been  a  complete 
reversal  of  opinions  with  regard  to  them,  among  German 
and  French  scholars. 

An  excellent  example  of  this  is  to  be  noted  in  Dr. 
Julius  Pagel,  who,  in  his  chapter  on  Medicine  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  in  Puschmann's  Handbook  of  the  History 
of  Medicine,  says:  "There  were  three  writers  whose 
works  were  even  more  popular  than  those  of  Albertus 
Magnus.  These  three  were  :  Bartholomew  the  English- 
man, Thomas  of  Cantimprato,  and  Vincent  of  Beauvais, 
the  last  of  whom  must  be  considered  as  one  of  the  most 
important  contributors  to  the  generalization  of  scientific 
knowledge,  not  alone  in  the  thirteenth,  but  in  the  im- 
mediately succeeding  centuries.  His  most  important 
work  was  really  an  encyclopedia  of  the  knowledge  of  his 
time.  It  was  called  the  Greater  Triple  Mirror,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  it  reflected  very  thoroughly  the 
knowledge  of  his  period.  He  had  the  true  scientific 
spirit,  and  constantly  cites  the  authorities  from  whom 
his  information  was  derived.  He  cites  hundreds  of 
authors,  and  there  is  scarcely  a  subject  that  he  does  not 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  337 

touch  on.  One  book  of  his  work  is  concerned  with 
human  anatomy,  and  the  concluding  portion  of  it  is  an 
abbreviation  of  history  carried  down  to  the  year  1250." 

It  might  be  considered  that  such  a  compend  of  in- 
formation would  be  very  dry-as-dust  reading  and  that  it 
would  be  fragmentary  in  character  and  little  likely  to 
be  attractive  except  to  a  serious  student.  Dr.  Pagel's 
opinion  does  not  agree  with  this  a  priori  impression.  He 
says  with  regard  to  Vincent's  work  :  "  The  language  is 
clear,  readily  intelligible,  and  the  information  is  con- 
veyed usually  in  an  excellent,  simple  style.  Through 
the  introduction  of  interesting  similes  the  contents  do 
not  lack  a  certain  taking  quality,  so  that  the  reading  of 
the  work  easily  becomes  absorbing. "  This  is,  I  suppose, 
almost  the  last  thing  that  might  be  expected  of  a  sci- 
entific teacher  in  the  thirteenth  century,  because,  after 
all,  Vincent  of  Beauvais  must  be  considered  as  one  of 
the  schoolmen,  and  they  are  supposed  to  be  eminently 
arid,  but  evidently,  since  we  must  trust  this  testimony 
of  a  discerning  modern  German  physician,  only  by  those 
who  have  not  taken  the  trouble  to  read  them. 

Vincent  of  Beauvais  was  not  the  only  one  to  occupy 
himself  with  work  of  an  encyclopedic  character  during 
the  thirteenth  century.  At  least  two  other  clergymen 
gave  themselves  up  to  the  life-long  work  of  collecting 
details  of  information  so  as  to  make  them  available  for 
ready  reference  in  their  own  times  and  for  succeeding 
generations.  The  very  fact  that  three  men  should  have 
taken  up  such  a  task,  shows  that  there  must  have  been 
a  loud  call  for  this  sort  of  writing,  and  that  there  must 
have  been  a  veritable  thirst  for  information  among  the 
educated  classes  of  the  time.  Such  books,  as  we  have 
said,  are  not  created  without  a  demand  for  them,  though 


338  THE    POPES  AND    SCIENCE 

they  undoubtedly  serve  in  turn  to  awaken  a  greater 
thirst  for  the  information  which  they  purvey.  The  other 
two  encyclopedists  of  the  time  are  Thomas  Cantipratano 
and  Bartholomasus  Anglicus,  the  Englishman. 

Thomas  of  Cantimprato's  work  was  probably  published 
about  1260.  Von  Toply,  in  his  Studies  in  Anatomy  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  has  the  most  readily  available  informa- 
tion with  regard  to  Thomas's  work.1  The  work  of  most 
interest  to  us  is  the  De  Natura  Rerum,  a  single  large 
volume  in  twenty  books.  It  required  some  fifteen  years 
of  work,  and  for  some  fifteen  years  before  he  began  his 
work  on  it  Thomas  had  been  writing  various  historical 
and  biographical  works.  Thomas's  encyclopedic  volume 
contains  one  book  with  regard  to  anatomy,  one  with 
regard  to  human  monsters,  and  books  with  regard  to 
quadrupeds,  birds,  marine  monsters,  fishes,  serpents, 
worms,  ordinary  trees,  aromatic  and  medicinal  plants 
and  the  virtues  of  herbs,  and  of  curative  waters  of  various 
kinds.  Then  there  are  books  on  precious  stones  and 
their  cutting,  on  the  seven  regions  and  the  humors  of 
the  air,  on  the  earth  and  the  seven  planets,  and  on  the 
four  elements  and  the  Heavens  and  eclipses  of  the  sun 
and  moon.  When  such  a  work  was  published  for  general 
reading,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  no  phase  of  in- 
formation with  regard  to  nature  failed  to  be  of  interest 
to  readers  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Much  that  is  ab- 
surd is  contained  in  the  book.  But  when  we  compare  it 
with  books  written  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  we  are  apt  to  wonder  rather  at  how  little  ad- 
vance had  taken  place  in  the  four  centuries  of  interval, 
than  at  the  ignorance  of  the  medieval  writer. 

1  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der  Anatomic  im  Mittelalter  von  Robert  Hitter  von 
Toply,  Leipzig  und  Wien.    Franz  Deuticke,  1898. 


CHURCHMEN    AND    SCIENCE  339 

We  have  been  able,  of  course,  in  this  limited  space  to 
give  only  a  modicum  of  the  evidence  for  the  cultivation 
of  the  Physical  Sciences  at  the  Medieval  Universities, 
and  their  records  in  monumental  works  still  extant ;  but 
this  will  probably  be  enough  to  enable  those  who  are  in- 
terested in  the  subject  to  realize  its  significance  and  to 
gather  further  material  if  they  so  wish.  The  universities 
were  ecclesiastical  institutions.  Most  of  them  derived 
their  authority  to  give  degrees  directly  from  the  Popes. 
Appeals  were  frequently  made  to  the  Popes  with  regard 
to  the  discipline  and  the  teaching  at  the  universities. 
Most  of  the  great  teachers  of  physical  science  were  ec- 
clesiastics. Nearly  all  the  students  were  clerics.  Many 
of  those  who  were  most  successful  in  science  reached 
high  preferment  in  the  Church.  Evidently  the  pursuit 
of  science  did  not  prejudice  their  advancement,  either  in 
their  orders,  when  they  belonged  to  any  of  the  various 
religious  orders,  or  in  the  Church  itself.  They  were  the 
near  and  dear  friends  of  archbishops,  cardinals  and 
Popes.  This  is  entirely  contrary  to  the  ordinary  im- 
pression in  the  matter  ;  but  this  is  the  plain  truth,  while 
the  contrary  opinions  are  founded  on  the  false  assump- 
tion of  Church  opposition  to  science. 


THE   MEDIEVAL   UNIVERSITY   MAN   AND 
SCIENCE. 

Even  after  the  series  of  demonstrations  which  we 
have  given  that  the  great  thinkers  and  teachers  at  the 
medieval  universities  were  deeply  interested  in  the 
problems  of  what  we  now  call  natural  or  physical  sci- 
ence, most  people  will  still  not  be  open  to  conviction  that 
interest  in  nature  was  quite  as  lively  in  the  Middle  Ages 
as  at  any  subsequent  period,  even  our  own.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  that  the  scholastics  faced  scientific  questions  in 
nearly  the  same  mood  as  we  do  ourselves,  and,  curiously 
enough,  anticipated  very  closely  many  of  the  doctrines 
now  current  in  science,  not  a  few  of  those  who  are  most 
interested  in  the  history  of  education  will  continue  to 
think  that  science  occupied  the  minds  of  the  students  at  the 
medieval  universities  very  little,  and  that  while  the  great 
thinkers  may  have  known  something  about  it,  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  university  men  of  the  time  gave  scarcely 
any  thought  to  it.  Besides,  they  will  be  almost  sure  to 
conclude  that,  whatever  they  did  think  was  likely  to  be 
inept,  and  in  most  cases  quite  ridiculous.  Such  thoughts 
are  a  part  of  that  unfortunate  educational  tradition 
which  stamps  the  Middle  Ages  as  neglectful  of  nature 
study,  as  we  would  call  it  now,  and  as  lacking  in  inter- 
est in  natural  phenomena.  Nothing  could  well  be  less 
true,  and  it  will  require,  I  think,  but  the  simple  tracing 
of  the  life  and  erudition  of  a  single  well-known  student 
of  these  medieval  universities,  to  show  how  utterly  ab- 
surd and  unfounded  is  the  popular  belief. 

(340) 


UNIVERSITY    MAN    AND    SCIENCE  34} 

I  have  chosen  Dante  for  this  purpose,  mainly  because 
so  much  more  is  known  about  the  personal  details  of  his 
life  than  of  anyone  else,  and  we  are  able  to  glean  from 
his  writings  and  the  contemporary  comments  on  them, 
a  good  idea  of  what  the  general  information  on  scientific 
subjects  of  the  educated  man  of  his  period  was.  The 
fact  that  Dante  was  a  member  of  the  Guild  of  the 
Apothecaries  in  Florence,  an  association  that  included 
also  the  physicians  of  the  city,  has  added  an  adventitious 
interest  to  his  attractions  as  one  of  the  few  greatest  of 
poets  of  all  time,  and  has  made  details  of  his  career  and 
evidence  of  the  breadth  of  his  education  and  culture  of 
special  import,  so  that  I  have  frequently  taken  occasion 
to  call  the  attention  of  physicians  to  the  honor  implied 
by  Dante's  fraternal  relation  to  us,  His  membership  in 
the  Guild  of  the  Apothecaries,  however,  did  not  call  for 
any  special  knowledge  of  science  on  his  part.  He  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  sale  of  drugs,  much  less  with  the 
science  of  medicine.  Originally  the  Italian  apothecaries, 
as  the  Greek  origin  of  the  word  indicates,  were  shop- 
keepers selling  all  sorts  of  things— edible,  adorning,  or 
useful  for  personal  service.  They  sold  drugs  also,  and 
as  some  of  these  were  imported  from  the  East,  they 
commonly  added  to  their  stock  certain  other  Eastern 
specialties— perfumes,  gems  and  the  like.  In  this  way 
they  soon  became  wealthy,  as  a  rule,  and  indeed  the 
name  of  the  rich  Florentine  family  who  came  eventually 
to  rule  their  native  city— the  Medici— is  said  to  be  de- 
rived from  similar  connections.  It  was  the  sons  of  these 
men  who  became  the  upper  middle  classes  in  Florence. 
Perhaps  one  should  say  they  became  the  upper  classes, 
for  Florence  had  no  nobility,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
word,  and  men  made  their  own  positions.  Their  de- 


342  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

scendants  became  the  men  of  culture,  until  finally  the 
Florentine  Guild  of  the  Apothecaries  represented  the 
most  intelligent  class  of  the  population  of  the  city. 
During  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  then, 
most  of  the  artists,  the  literary  men,  the  architects,  the 
sculptors,  were  members  of  the  guild.  Dante's  occupa- 
tion when  he  was  a  peaceful  citizen  of  Florence  was, 
according  to  tradition,  that  of  architect,  and  one  build- 
ing designed  by  him  is  supposed  to  be  still  in  existence 
in  Florence. 

Dante  should  represent  for  us,  then,  what  an  architect 
in  Florence  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  knew 
about  natural  science,  as  the  result  of  his  school  and 
university  training.  In  our  time,  architects  are  likely 
to  know  more  about  certain  forms  of  physical  science 
than  most  other  people,  and  due  allowance  would  have 
to  be  made  for  this  in  Dante's  case.  It  will  be  found, 
though,  as  we  discuss  his  erudition,  that  the  sciences  in 
which  he  was  particularly  interested— astronomy  and 
various  phases  of  biology  with  physical  geography— 
were  not  those  which  appeal  especially  to  an  architect, 
and  certainly  have  no  relation  to  his  occupation.  His 
knowledge  of  flowers  might  be  thought  to  be  due  to  his 
wish  to  use  floral  forms  for  structural  decorative  pur- 
poses, but  Dante  is  rather  weak  for  a  poet  in  the  matter 
of  the  description  of  flowers,  and  it  is  only  from  the 
side  of  their  color  that  they  made  any  special  appeal 
to  him. 

Most  people  have  been  led  to  think  of  Dante  as  not  a 
student  of  nature,  because  that  impression  would  inevi- 
tably be  gathered  from  certain  passages  of  John  Ruskin 
with  regard  to  him.  Ruskin  was  so  faithful  and  loving 
a  student  of  Dante  that  he  would  be  expected  not  to  be 


UNIVERSITY    MAN    AND    SCIENCE  343 

mistaken  in  such  a  matter,  nor  is  he  ;  but  he  has  dwelt 
overmuch  on  certain  phases  of  Dante's  lack  of  interest 
in  nature,  until  the  great  Florentine's  devotion  to  crea- 
tion as  he  saw  it  around  him  is  obscured.  It  is  not  dif- 
ficult to  show,  from  Dante's  own  writings,  how  much  he 
was  interested  in  nearly  every  phase  of  nature  and 
natural  phenomena.  In  the  "Westminster  Review" 
for  July  and  August,  1907,  Mr.  George  Trobridge,  in 
articles  on  Dante  as  a  Nature  Poet,  has  furnished  abun- 
dant evidence  to  prove  his  thesis,  though  he  too  has  felt 
the  necessity  for  apologizing  for  even  apparently  differ- 
ing from  so  great  a  critic  and  such  an  enthusiastic  Dante 
student  as  Ruskin.  Dante's  works,  however,  themselves 
can  be  the  only  appeal  in  this  matter,  and  Mr.  Trobridge 
has  used  them  with  good  effect  and  in  such  a  way  as  to 
carry  to  anyone  the  conviction  that  Dante  was  a  pro- 
found student  of  nature  in  all  her  moods  and  tenses. 
Mr.  Trobridge  says  in  the  introduction  : 

"It  will  appear  presumptuous  in  the  present  writer  to 
differ  from  so  great  a  critic  and  such  an  enthusiastic 
student  of  Dante  as  Ruskin,  but  it  seems  to  him  that 
the  author  of  Modern  Painters  has  done  scant  justice  to 
the  intense  insight  of  the  poet  into  the  beauties  of  the 
world  we  live  in  and  his  wonderful  power  of  expressing 
what  he  saw.  There  are  few  even  modern  poets  who 
have  taken  so  wide  a  view  of  the  field  of  nature,  and 
even  Shakespeare  himself  scarcely  excells  the  great 
Florentine  in  felicity  and  concentration  of  expression. 
The  Divina  Commedia  is  full  of  vivid  pictures  covering 
the  whole  range  of  natural  phenomena.  As  these  pass 
before  our  eyes,  we  can  scarcely  realize  that  the  painter 
of  them  is  not  of  our  own  day,  so  thoroughly  does  he 
enter  into  the  spirit  of  modern  landscape  art.  Some- 


344  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

times  his  pictures  are  momentary  impressions— studies 
of  effects  painted  with  a  large  brush  ;  at  others  his  touch 
is  of  a  Preraphaelitic  nicety,  and  now  and  then  he  gives 
us  a  studied  composition  full  of  doubtful  detail  like  one 
of  Turner's  landscapes.  He  was  one  with  Wordsworth 
in  his  sincere  delight  in  every  form  of  natural  beauty. 
Like  him,  he  lived  beneath  the  habitual  sway  of  foun- 
tains, meadows,  hills  and  groves  ;  with  him  he  saw  the 
'  splendor  in  the  grass '  and  the  '  glory  in  the  flower. ' 
He  could  '  feel  the  gladness  of  the  May '  and  rejoiced  in 
'  the  innocent  brightness  of  a  new  day.'  " 

In  the  matter  of  science  as  distinct  from  poetic  in- 
terest in  nature,  quite  as  much  can  be  said  for  Dante. 
This  greatest  of  Italian  poets  is  a  fair  example  to  take 
of  the  university  man  of  the  thirteenth  century  in  this 
respect.  He  was  thirty-five  before  the  first  century  of 
university  existence  properly  so-called  closed.  He  may  be 
considered  a  typical  product  of  university  life.  It  is  true 
he  had  had  the  almost  inestimable  advantage  of  the 
schooling  and  culture  of  his  native  Florence,  where  at 
the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  there  were  more  chil- 
dren, it  is  said,  in  attendance  at  the  schools  to  the  num- 
ber of  the  population  than  there  is  at  the  present 
moment  even  in  most  of  our  American  cities.  Brother 
Azarias  in  his  Essays  Educational,1  said  : 

"In  the  thirteenth  century,  out  of  a  population  of 
90,000  in  Florence,  we  find  12,000  children  attending  the 
schools,  a  ratio  of  school  attendance  as  large  as  existed 
in  New  York  City,  in  the  year  of  Grace  1893."  This 
ratio,  it  may  be  said,  is  as  great  as  is  ordinarily  to  be 
found  anywhere,  and  this  fact  alone  may  serve  to  show 

1  Essays  Educational,  by  Brother  Azarias,  with  Preface  by  His  Eminence  Cardinal 
Gibbons.  Chicago,  D.  H.  McBride  &  Co.,  1906. 


UNIVERSITY    MAN   AND    SCIENCE  345 

how  earnest  were  these  medieval  burghers  for  the  edu- 
cation of  their  children.  Dante  had  the  advantage  of 
this,  and  in  addition,  of  the  training  at  two  or  three  of 
the  universities  at  least  of  Italy,  besides  spending  some 
time  at  Paris,  and  probably  a  visit  at  least  to  Oxford. 

Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  perhaps  Brother  Aza- 
rias  gave  too  favorable  an  estimate  in  his  account  of  the 
schools  in  Florence,  though  he  quotes  as  his  authority 
Villani,  and  other  authorities  are  readily  available,  it 
seems  worth  while  to  give  a  very  interesting  reference 
to  this  subject  of  education  in  one  of  the  notes  in  Prince 
Kropotkin's  chapter  on  Mutual  Aid  in  the  Medieval  City, 
from  his  book  Mutual  Aid  a  Factor  in  Evolution,  a  work 
that  we  have  placed  under  contribution  a  number  of 
times  already  in  this  attempt  to  picture  medieval  condi- 
tions as  they  were  in  reality,  and  not  in  the  foolish 
imaginings  of  outworn  traditions.  Kropotkin's  studies 
in  what  the  free  cities  accomplished  by  the  union  of  the 
guilds  for  every  fraternal  purpose,  and  the  coordination 
of  their  citizens  for  every  detail  of  the  commonweal,  has 
made  him  realize  that  common  or  public  school  educa- 
tion was  an  important  feature  of  medieval  free  city  life, 
and  strange  as  that  fact  may  appear  to  many  modern 
minds,  that  such  public  school  education  occupied  at 
least  as  prominent  a  position  as  it  does  with  us  in  our 
own  time.  In  the  quotation  from  him  it  will  be  seen 
that  he  considers  that  Florence  was  not  alone  in  this 
matter,  and  he  ventures  to  place  Nuremberg  on  a  level 
with  her.  Doubtless  other  German  cities,  as  certainly 
other  Italian  cities,  provided  similar  facilities  for  general 
education. 

Kropotkin  says:  "In  1336  it  (Florence)  had  8,000  to 
10,000  boys  and  girls  in  its  primary  schools,  1,000  to 


346  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

1,200  boys  in  its  seven  middle  schools,  and  from  550  to 
600  students  in  its  four  universities.  The  thirty  com- 
munal hospitals  contained  over  1,000  beds  for  a  popula- 
tion of  90,000  inhabitants.  (Capponi,  ii.  249  seq.)  It 
has  more  than  once  been  suggested  by  authoritative 
writers,  that  education  stood,  as  a  rule,  at  a  much  higher 
level  than  is  generally  supposed.  Certainly  so  in  demo- 
cratic Nuremberg. " 

The  content  of  this  educational  system  is  our  main 
subject  of  interest  at  the  present  moment. 

Seven  hundred  young  men  received  the  higher  edu- 
cation. (This  in  a  city  of  less  than  100,000  inhabitants. 
How  do  our  cities  of  100,000  inhabitants  compare  with 
it  ?)  The  very  spirit  of  the  arts  was  scholastic  in 
Dante's  day.  You  read  the  story  in  the  oratory  of 
Orsanmichele,  in  which  each  art  with  its  masterpiece 
receives  a  crown  ;  you  read  it  in  the  chapters  of  Santa 
Maria  Novella,  in  Gaddi's  painting  of  the  Trivium  and 
Quadrivium  ;  you  read  it  in  Giotto's  sculpture  of  the 
same  subject  upon  this  marvelous  campanile.  Here  was 
the  atmosphere  in  which  Dante's  boyhood  and  early 
manhood  were  passed." 

We  shall  not  be  surprised,  then,  to  find  in  Dante,  the 
typical  product  of  this  form  of  education,  an  interest  in 
every  form  of  erudition  and  in  all  details  of  information. 

I  have  preferred  to  take  the  evidence  for  Dante's 
knowledge  of  science  from  others,  rather  than  attempt 
to  supply  it  entirely  by  means  of  quotations  from  his 
works.  This  latter  would  be  the  most  scholarly  way, 
but  Dante  is  not  easy  reading  even  in  a  good  translation, 
and  one  needs  to  be  familiar  with  his  modes  of  expres- 
sion and  to  be  accustomed  to  the  wonderful  compression 
of  his  style  to  appreciate  his  full  significance.  There  is 


UNIVERSITY    MAN    AND    SCIENCE  347 

no  lack  of  good  authorities,  however,  who  have  made 
deep  studies  in  Dante,  to  bring  out  for  us  the  complete 
import  of  all  the  references  to  the  science  of  his  time, 
which  Dante  was  tempted  to  make.  We  have  perhaps 
been  prone  to  think,  in  English-speaking  countries,  that 
no  poets  have  ever  kept  more  thoroughly  in  touch  with 
the  progress  of  science,  or  at  least  have  ever  used  refer- 
ences to  scientific  details  with  more  accuracy,  than  some 
of  our  own  nineteenth  century  poets.  A  little  study  of 
the  first  great  poet  of  modern  times,  in  whom  Carlyle 
said  "ten  silent  centuries  found  a  voice, "  though  Dante 
by  no  means  stands  alone  in  the  century,  but  is  the  cul- 
mination of  a  series  of  great  poets,  will  show  that  he 
probably  must  be  considered  as  taking  the  palm  even 
from  our  most  modern  of  poets  in  this  respect.  If  the 
expressions  in  text-books  of  the  history  of  education  are 
to  be  accepted  as  evidence  of  the  thoughts  of  educators 
with  regard  to  the  details  of  education  in  Dante's  time, 
even  a  brief  sketch  of  Dante's  scientific  knowledge  will 
be  a  supreme  surprise  to  them. 

As  will  be  at  once  appreciated,  Dante  was  not  a  spe- 
cialist in  science,  but  used  the  knowledge  of  science  cur- 
rent in  his  day  in  order  to  drive  home  his  thoughts  by 
means  of  figures.  It  is  surprising,  however,  what  a 
marvelous  display  of  scientific  knowledge,  entirely  with- 
out pedantry,  which  anyone  who  knows  his  supreme 
compression  of  style  will  realize  to  be  the  fault  Dante  is 
least  liable  to,  was  thus  made  by  this  educated  literary 
man  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Dr.  L.  Oscar  Kuhns, 
Professor  in  Wesleyan  University,  has  in  his  little  book 
The  Treatment  of  Nature  in  Dante's  Divina  Commedia, 
suggested  a  comparison  between  Dante  and  Goethe.1 

1  The  Treatment  of  Nature  in  Dante's  Divina  Commedia,  by  L.  Oscar  Kuhns, 
Professor  in  Wesleyan  University,  Middletown,  U.  S.  A.  Edward  Arnold.  London 
and  New  York,  1897. 


348  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Everyone  realizes  at  once  how  profound  a  scientist  was 
Goethe.  Professor  Kuhns'  comparison,  then,  will  bring 
out  the  scientific  qualities  of  this  great  medieval  poet, 
who  is  the  representative  scholar  of  the  universities  of 
his  time. 

"There  is  perhaps  no  innate  contradiction  between 
science  and  poetry,  but  it  is  not  often  that  they  are 
found  together  in  the  same  man.  Dante,  like  Goethe, 
half  a  millennium  later,  was.  not  only  drawn  by  the 
beauty  of  nature,  but  he  had  likewise  an  unquenchable 
intellectual  curiosity,  and  sought  diligently  to  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  the  universe  in  which  he  lived. 

' '  No  other  poet  has  ever  combined  the  loftiest  poetry 
with  the  discussion  of  such  complicated  topics  in  all 
branches  of  learning.  In  one  place  we  find  a  long  dis- 
cussion of  the  origin  and  development  of  life,  which, 
naive  and  scholastic  as  it  is,  shows  some  lines  of  resem- 
blance to  the  modern  doctrines  in  biology ;  in  another 
place  there  is  a  learned  discussion  between  the  poet  and 
Beatrice  concerning  the  cause  of  the  spots  in  the  moon, 
in  which  an  actual  experiment  in  optics  is  given. " 

The  first  passage  to  which  Professor  Kuhns  refers, 
while  containing  many  speculative  elements,  is  a  discus- 
sion of  certain  important  basic  problems  in  biology  that 
have  always  appealed  to  thinking  men  at  every  period 
of  the  history  of  science,  and  never  more  so  than  in  our 
own  day.  They  must  still  be  considered  undecided, 
though  many  volumes  have  been  written  on  them  in  the 
last  century.  There  are  thoughts  in  Dante's  exposition 
of  the  subject  that  are  startling  enough  to  the  modern 
biologist,  and  that  make  it  clear  how  much  men's  minds 
run  along  the  same  grooves  in  facing  questions  that  we 
are  prone  to  think  have  occurred  to  men  only  in  the  last 


UNIVERSITY    MAN    AND    SCIENCE  349 

few  generations.  The  other  quotation  to  which  Profes- 
sor Kuhns  refers  deserves  to  be  quoted  entire.  It  is 
perhaps  even  more  striking  because  of  its  actual  de- 
scription of  an  experiment  in  optics,  which  shows  how 
much  this  great  poetic  intelligence  of  the  medieval  time, 
usually  supposed  to  be  so  abstracted  and  occupied  with 
things  other-worldly  and  supernal,  living  his  intellectual 
life  quite  beyond  the  domain  of  sense,  still  remembered 
the  teachings  of  his  university  days,  and  even  recalled 
the  details  of  demonstrations  that  he  had  seen.  The 
passage  occurs  in  the  II.  canto  of  the  Paradiso,  begin- 
ning with  line  97 : 

"Take  thou  three  mirrors,  two  of  them  remove 

From  thee  an  equal  distance,  and  the  last 
Between  the  two,  and  further  from  thee  move  ; 

And  turned  towards  them  let  a  light  be  cast, 
Behind  thy  back,  upon  those  mirrors  three, 

So  that  from  all  reflected  rays  are  passed. 
Then,  though  the  light  which  furthest  stands  from 
thee 

May  not  with  them  in  magnitude  compete, 
Yet  will  it  shine  in  brightness  equally/' 

It  is  easy  to  understand,  then,  that  Professor  Kuhns 
should  have  been  enthusiastic  with  regard  to  Dante's 
knowledge  of  science.  He  says  : 

"The  whole  structure  of  Hell,  Purgatory,  and  Para- 
dise shows  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  Ptolemaic  sys- 
tem ;  and  we  invariably  find  astronomical  facts,  mingled 
with  classical  quotations,  in  the  description  of  stellar 
phenomena.  But  not  only  in  specific  passages  do  we 
find  evidence  of  Dante's  love  for  science,  but  in  brief 
allusions  to  the  various  aspects  of  nature— metaphors, 


350  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

figures,  descriptions— a  word  or  two  is  added,  giving  the 
cause  of  the  phenomenon  in  question.  Examples  of 
this  abound." 

It  is  with  regard  to  astronomy,  of  course,  that  Dante 
has  given  us  the  most  convincing  evidence  of  his  knowl- 
edge of  science,  his  interest  in  nature  and  natural 
phenomena,  his  questioning  spirit  in  nature  study,  and 
the  wonderful  anticipations  of  his  generation  with  re- 
gard to  knowledge  that  has  usually  been  supposed  to 
have  been  hidden  from  them.  The  stars  appealed  to 
his  poetic  spirit,  and  then  besides,  his  great  poem  occu- 
pied itself  with  all  the  visible  universe,  and  especially 
with  the  parts  outside  this  world.  Professor  Kuhns  has 
said : 

"One  may  confidently  assert  that  no  such  perfect  lines 
descriptive  of  the  stars  have  ever  been  written.  Shake- 
speare and  others  can  furnish  famous  passages,  but 
none,  I  think,  equal  to  those  of  Dante.  They  have  all 
the  quality  of  his  art— truth,  clearness,  possessing  the 
power  of  touching  deeply  the  imagination,  yet  terse  and 
compact,  containing  not  a  word  too  much.  We  see  the 
stars  at  all  hours  of  the  night,  in  all  degrees  of  bril- 
liancy, fading  away  at  the  approach  of  dawn,  gradually 
appearing  as  twilight  comes  on,  shining  with  splendor 
on  a  moonless  night,  keenly  sparkling  after  the  winds 
have  cleared  the  atmosphere,  or  eclipsed  by  the  greater 
effulgence  of  the  moon.  The  motion  of  the  constella- 
tions about  the  pole  is  referred  to,  those  which  are 
nearest  to  it  never  setting  beneath  the  horizon." 

It  is  often  thought  that  the  proper  idea  of  the  explana- 
tion of  the  Milky  Way  was  quite  modern.  Dante,  how- 
ever, discusses  in  his  Convito  the  theories  of  it  that  had 
been  suggested  up  to  his  time,  and  then  gives  his  own 


UNIVERSITY    MAN    AND    SCIENCE  351 

views,  which  he  confesses  are  founded  on  Aristotle,  but 
which  are  evidently  the  result  also  of  his  own  thinking. 
Pythagoras,  he  said,  attributed  it  to  the  scorching  heat 
of  the  sun,  as  if  somehow  this  left  a  trace  of  itself  even 
after  the  sun  had  sunk.  Other  Greek  philosophers,  as 
for  example  Anaxagoras  and  Democritus,  explained  it 
as  a  reflection  of  the  light  of  the  sun  which  still  found 
its  way  even  though  that  luminary  had  passed  from 
sight.  Dante  himself  says  that,  following  Aristotle,  he 
cannot  help  but  think  that  the  Milky  Way  is  composed 
of  a  multitude  of  minute  stars  which  are  gathered  very 
closely  together  in  this  particular  part  of  the  heavens, 
and  which  are  so  small  that  they  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  one  another,  though  their  light  causes  that  special 
white  luminosity  which  we  call  the  Milky  Way.  This 
explanation  is  the  true  one,  only  that  the  apparent 
smallness  of  the  stars  are  due  to  their  distance,  and  not 
to  their  actual  minuteness  of  size. 

A  brief  list  of  the  other  astronomical  phenomena  men- 
tioned by  Dante  has  been  made  by  Professor  Kuhns. 
This  serves  to  show  very  clearly  that  Dante's  knowledge 
with  regard  to  the  heavens  was  quite  as  extensive  as 
that  of  the  modern  educated  man,  indeed,  probably  more 
so,  and  that  it  was  quite  as  exact.  The  little  touch 
which  shows  that  he  knew,  for  instance,  that  August 
is  the  month  when  shooting  stars  are  more  frequent,  is 
wonderfully  illuminating.  His  powers  of  observation 
are  brought  out  by  his  having  seen  them  during  the  day 
as  well  as  at  night.  In  all  this  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  Dante  was  no  mere  pedant  making  a  display  of  his 
knowledge  ;  that  he  was  not  one  to  parade  his  erudi- 
tion for  the  sake  of  show  ;  that  indeed  no  one  has  ever 
written  so  compressedly  as  he  ;  that  every  word  that  he 


352  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

used  counts  in  bringing  out  his  meaning,  and  yet  that 
we  find  all  this  wealth  of  information  with  regard  to 
astronomy  in  a  book  that  was  meant  to  proclaim,  and 
has,  in  the  opinion  of  men  for  all  time  since,  expressed 
more  sublimely  the  significance  of  man's  relations  to  the 
universe  and  his  reflections  on  the  infinite  in  lofty  poetic 
thought,  than  any  other  that  was  ever  written.  Pro- 
fessor Kuhns  says : 

"  The  other  celestial  phenomena  mentioned  by  Dante 
may  be  dismissed  briefly.  We  have  references  to  the 
eclipse  and  its  cause,  and  the  Blessed  in  the  Heaven  of 
the  Fixed  Stars  flame  brightly,  a  guisa  di  comete  (in  the 
guise  of  a  comet) .  Shooting-st«ars  are  referred  to  sev- 
eral times,  almost  invariably  as  a  conventional  figure 
for  rapidity.  August  is  the  month  when  they  are  the 
most  frequent,  and  they  are  most  seen  to  shoot  with 
lightninglike  swiftness  across  the  serene  blue  sky  or 
pierce  the  clouds  that  gather  around  the  setting  sun. 
One  fine  passage  describes  the  spectator  following  them 
with  his  eyes  as  they  lose  themselves  in  the  distance. " 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  Prof.  Kuhns  should  be  quite 
enthusiastic  with  regard  to  Dante's  use  of  astronomical 
knowledge.  He  insists,  however,  that  while  it  was  his 
poetic  soul  and  love  for  the  stars  that  tempted  him  to 
allow  his  thoughts  to  wander  so  frequently  into  the 
realm  of  the  celestial  bodies,  his  interest  was  always 
profoundly  scientific.  His  passage  to  this  effect  is  worth 
while  quoting  in  extenso,  because  it  brings  out  this  fact 
very  clearly.  As  Prof.  Kuhns'  only  idea  in  this  was  to 
show  how  marvelously  the  representative  poet  of  the 
Middle  Ages  turned  to  nature  in  his  poetry,  and  there 
was  no  thought  of  controverting  the  foolish  notions  of 
those  who  so  lightly  declare  that  the  students  of  the 


UNIVERSITY    MAN    AND    SCIENCE  353 

Middle  Age  universities  knew  nothing  of  science,  the 
paragraph  is  a  bit  of  very  striking  evidence  in  this 
matter. 

"Dante's  love  for  the  stars  was  largely  scientific  ;  he 
knew  thoroughly  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  astronomy, 
which  forms  the  framework  of  the  whole  structure  of 
the  Paradiso.  We  find  constant  and  accurate  allusions 
to  the  constellations,  their  various  shapes  and  positions 
in  the  heavens ;  while  the  hour  of  the  day  and  the 
season  of  the  year  are  often  referred  to  in  terms  of 
astronomical  science,  frequently  interwoven  with  myth- 
ology. But  besides  this  scientific  interest,  he  was  deeply 
touched  by  the  beauty,  the  mystery  and  the  tranquilizing 
power  of  the  celestial  orbs.  There  is  hardly  a  phase  of 
them  that  he  has  not  touched  upon ;  many  of  his  descrip- 
tions and  allusions  have  a  truth  and  vividness  unsur- 
passed even  in  this  present  day  of  nature  worship. 
Here,  as  elsewhere  in  the  Divina  Commedia,  science  and 
learning  and  poetry  go  hand  in  hand.  We  have  no  mere 
dry  catalogue  of  facts,  but  the  wonderful  mechanism  of 
the  starry  heavens  is  brought  before  our  eyes,  rolling  its 
spheres  in  celestial  harmony,  radiant  with  light  and 
splendour,  while  the  innumerable  company  of  angels 
and  the  'spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect'  raise  the 
chorus  of  praise  to  the  Alto  Fattore." 

We  cannot  but  add  the  reflection  that,  as  our  own 
poets  of  the  nineteenth  century  indulged  themselves  in 
figures  drawn  from  science  not  only  because  of  their  own 
interest  in  the  subject,  but  because  they  realized  the 
interest  of  the  men  of  their  time  in  matters  scientific 
and  appreciated  that  figures  drawn  from  them  would 
add  to  the  significance  of  their  own  thoughts,  so  Dante 
would  not  have  used  figures  drawn  from  science  only 


354  THE    POPES  AND    SCIENCE 

that,  closely  in  touch  as  he  was  with  the  educated  men 
of  his  time  in  many  cities  and  countries,  he  felt  that  he 
would  thus  not  only  be  adding  to  the  interest  of  his 
work,  but  would  be  making  his  own  meaning  clearer  by 
a  wealth  of  allusion  from  things  scientific.  This  is  in- 
deed the  side  of  this  study  of  Dante  that  deserves  the 
most  thorough  consideration  by  educators  in  our  time, 
if  they  would  understand  what  the  real  spirit  of  the 
teaching  of  science  in  the  medieval  universities  was,  and 
what  the  attitude  of  educated  people  of  the  time  to- 
ward nature  study,  which  has  been  so  egregiously  mis- 
represented by  those  who  know  nothing  at  all  about  it, 
must  be  considered  to  have  been.  All  this  we  must 
judge,  however,  from  contemporary  sources,  and  not 
from  subsequent  supercilious  misrepresentations. 

It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  Dante's  inter- 
est in  science  was  exhausted  by  his  excursions  into 
astronomy.  This  has  already  been  more  than  hinted  at 
in  some  of  the  passages  quoted,  which  show  his  interest 
in  other  phases  of  science.  In  the  modern  time,  how- 
ever, it  is  almost  the  rule,  that  if  a  scholar  who  is  not  a 
scientist,  and  especially  if  he  happens  to  be,  as  Dante 
was,  a  literary  man,  indulges  in  some  scientific  pursuits, 
he  has  at  most  but  an  interest  in  one  branch  of  science. 
Quite  as  often  as  not  he  rather  prides  himself  on  know- 
ing nothing  at  all  about  this  department  of  knowledge. 
Specialism  has  invaded  even  scientific  education,  and 
a  man  specializes  in  some  favorite  department  of  science 
for  his  avocation,  and  is  apt  to  know  very  little  about 
other  departments.  Dante  was  not  thus  constituted, 
however.  It  will  be  comparatively  easy  to  show  that 
every  form  of  scientific  thought  interested  him,  and 
that  his  love  of  nature  led  him  into  nature  study,  in  the 


UNIVERSITY    MAN    AND    SCIENCE  355 

best  sense  of  that  very  modern  term,  and  caused  him 
to  make  observations  for  himself,  or  so  retain  the  ob- 
servations of  others  that  he  had  heard  or  read,  that  he 
was  able  to  use  them  very  forcibly  and  appropriately  in 
the  figurative  language  of  his  great  poem. 

Alexander  von  Humboldt,  the  distinguished  German 
naturalist  and  leader  of  scientific  thought  in  the  early 
nineteenth  century,  whose  compliment  to  Albertus 
Magnus,  quoted  in  the  chapter  on  Science  at  the  Medie- 
val Universities,  is  probably  a  surprise  to  most  people, 
but  serves  to  show  how  wide  was  the  reading  of  this 
great  scientist,  was  also  an  attentive  student  of  Dante, 
and  has  a  passage  with  regard  to  the  Florentine  poet's 
knowledge  of  science  quite  as  striking  as  that  with  re- 
gard to  the  great  scholastic's  excursions  into  the  same 
field.  In  his  Cosmos  he  has  the  following  tribute  to 
Dante  as  a  student  of  nature  and  as  a  loving  observer  of 
natural  phenomena : 

"When  the  story  of  the  Arabic,  Greek  or  Roman 
dominion— or,  I  might  almost  say,  when  the  ancient 
world  had  passed  away,  we  find  in  the  great  and  inspired 
founder  of  a  new  era,  Dante  Alighieri,  occasional  mani- 
festations of  the  deepest  sensibility  to  the  charms  of  the 
terrestrial  life  of  nature,  whenever  he  abstracts  himself 
from  the  passionate  and  subjective  control  of  that  de- 
spondent mysticism  which  constituted  the  general  circle 
of  his  ideas." 

With  regard  to  the  famous  description  of  the  river  of 
light  in  the  thirtieth  canto  of  the  Paradiso,  Humboldt 
declared  that  the  picture  must  have  been  suggested  to 
Dante  by  the  phosphorescence  seen  so  beautifully  and  so 
luxuriantly  in  the  Adriatic  Sea  at  times.  The  passage 
itself  is  so  beautiful  and  is  so  well  worth  the  reading  a 


356  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

second  time,  even  for  those  who  have  read  it  before, 
that  I  give  it  a  place  here,  followed  by  Humboldt's 
comment. 

I  saw  a  glory  like  a  stream  flow  by, 

In  brightness  rushing,  and  on  either  shore 
Were  banks  that  with  spring's  wondrous  hues  might  vie. 

And  from  that  river  living  sparks  did  soar, 
And  sank  on  all  sides  on  the  floweret's  bloom, 

Like  precious  rubies  set  in  golden  ore. 
Then,  as  if  drunk  with  all  the  rich  perfume, 

Back  to  the  wondrous  torrent  did  they  roll, 
And  as  one  sank  another  filled  its  room. 

Dean  Plumptre  says  that  Humboldt's  suggestion  with 
regard  to  this  description  has  not  been  found  elsewhere, 
and  as  it  adds  to  the  completeness  of  the  idea  conveyed 
by  the  figure,  he  gives  it  a  place  in  his  studies  and 
estimates  of  Dante.  Humboldt  said  : 

"It  would  almost  seem  as  if  this  picture  had  its  origin 
in.  the  poet's  recollection  of  that  peculiar  and  rare  phos- 
phorescent condition  of  the  ocean  when  luminous  points 
appear  to  rise  from  the  breaking  waves,  and,  spreading 
themselves  over  the  surface  of  the  waters,  convert  the 
liquid  plain  into  a  moving  sea  of  sparkling  stars." 

It  is  with  regard  to  the  little  things  in  life,  particularly 
those  that  are  so  small  that  one  would  be  tempted  to 
think  at  first  blush  that  Dante  paid  no  attention  to  them 
at  all,  that  his  powers  of  observation  as  a  student  of 
nature,  and  his  all-pervading  love  for  every  even  smallest 
manifestation  of  her  power,  is  especially  made  manifest. 
With  regard  to  this  subject,  Prof.  Kuhns,  to  whom  I 
have  already  turned  so  often,  has  an  illuminating  pas- 


UNIVERSITY    MAN    AND    SCIENCE  357 

sage,  which  sums  up  a  large  amount  of  reading  of  the 
poet  He  says : 

"The  smallest  members  of  the  animal  kingdom  do 
not  escape  the  observing  eye  of  the  poet,  and  such  un- 
poetical  insects  as  the  flea,  the  gnat,  and  the  fly  are 
brought  into  use.  By  means  of  these  latter  he  has  ac- 
curately given  the  time  of  day  and  season  of  the  year  in 
one  line,  where,  showing  us  the  farmer  lying  on  the 
hillside  of  a  summer  evening,  looking  down  upon  the 
valley  alight  with  fire-flies,  he  says  the  time  was  that 

'  When  the  fly  yields  to  the  gnat. ' 

Those  pests  of  dogs,  the  flea  and  hornet,  are  referred  to- 
in  a  passage  already  given,  where  the  dog  is  seen  snap- 
ping and  scratching  in  agony.  The  butterfly  was  sym- 
bolical, during  the  Middle  Ages,  tff  tha  death  and.  resur- 
rection of  the  body.  The  various  phases  of  its  development 
are  referred  to  by  Dante ;  the  caterpillar  state,  the 
latter  referring  to  the  cocoon  of  the  silk- worm,  furnish- 
ing a  figure  for  the  souls  in  Paradise,  swathed  in  light ; 
in  one  passage,  backsliding  Christians  are  compared  to 
insects  in  a  state  of  arrested  development. " 

Dante's  passage  in  the  tenth  canto  of  the  Purgatorio, 
in  which  he  compares  man  to  the  butterfly,  who  in  this 
life  passes  through  the  caterpillar  stage,  passing  in 
death,  as  it  were,  into  the  larval  stage  when  in  his  coffin 
he  is  motionless  and  apparently  dead,  as  the  insect  in 
its  cocoon,  yet  finally  reaching  the  glory  of  the  resur- 
rection in  the  winged  butterfly  stage,  shows  how  well 
these  medieval  observers  of  nature  had  studied  carefully 
aspects  of  nature  which  we  are  apt  to  think  were  holden 
entirely  from  their  eyes.  The  passage  would  remind  one 
of  the  story  of  the  Jesuit,  three  centuries  later,  who,  in 


358  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

the  early  days  of  missionary  work  in  this  country, 
wondered  how  he  would  obtain  a  fitting  word  to  express 
to  the  Indians  the  abstract  idea  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
body.  The  good  Father  finally  recalled  his  Dante,  and 
having  found  a  caterpillar  that  had  entered  into  the  larval 
stage  after  having  spun  its  cocoon  and  wrapped  itself 
round  with  its  shroud  to  lie  down  in  what  is  a  striking 
similitude  of  death,  presented  it  to  the  Indians,  and 
then  having  waited  until  the  butterfly  came  out,  asked 
them  what  they  called  this  process,  and  applied  the 
word  for  it  to  the  resurrection.  Dante  says  :— 

"  Perceive  ye  not  we  are  of  a  wormlike  kind, 
Born  to  bring  forth  the  angel  butterfly, 

That  soars  to  Judgment,  and  no  screen  doth  find  ? 
Why  doth  your  soul  lift  up  itself  on  high  ? 

Ye  are  as  insects  yet  but  half  complete, 
As  worms  in  whom  their  growth  fails  utterly." 

It  is  with  regard  to  bees  and  ants,  however,  that 
Dante's  observant  love  of  nature  and  of  natury  study  is 
especially  to  be  admired.  It  is  true,  as  has  been  often 
pointed  out,  that  the  older  poets,  of  whom  Dante  was-  an 
assiduous  and  mindful  reader,  made  use  of  figures  with 
regard  to  bees,  and  Virgil,  with  all  of  whose  works  Dante 
was  so  intimately  acquainted  that  nothing  must  have  es- 
caped him,  devoted  one  of  the  four  books  of  his  Georgics  to 
what  is  practically  a  treatise  on  Apiculture.  In  this  most 
of  the  problems  of  bee  raising  are  discussed.  Lucretius, 
Lucan,  and  Ovid,  all  made  use  of  this  interesting  insect 
for  figures  in  their  poetry.  Dante  might  have  obtained 
most  of  the  references  to  the  bee,  then,  from  his  reading. 
Prof.  Kuhns  is  of  the  opinion,  however,  that  some  at 


UNIVERSITY   MAN   AND    SCIENCE  359 

least  of  Dante's  references  to  them  are  due  to  his  obser- 
vations, quite  apart  from  his  literary  reminiscences  with 
regard  to  their  habits  and  instincts.  He  says  :— 

"  There  are  certain  touches  in  the  Divina  Commedia 
which  seem  to  prove  that  Dante's  use  of  them  was  not 
entirely  conventional.  In  the  wonderful  passage  where 
he  stands  contemplating 

'  La  forma  general  di  Paradiso, ' 

he  saw  the  Blessed  in  the  shape  of  a  great  white  rose  on 
the  banks  of  the  river  of  light;  and  the  white-robed 
angels,  with  wings  of  gold  and  faces  of  flame,  as  they  fly 
unceasingly  back  and  forth  from  the  seats  of  the  saints 
to  the  effulgent  river,  are  compared  to  bees,  following 
their  inborn  instinct  to  make  honey,  flying  from  flower 
to  flower,  burying  themselves  in  the  chalice,  and  then 
rising  heavily  to  carry  their  burden  to  their  hives.  In 
another  passage  their  buzzing  noise  is  compared  to  the 
noise  of  a  distant  waterfall;' '—a  touch  of  nature  that 
could  only  have  come  from  familiarity  with  the  insects. 
In  is  with  regard  to  ants  even  more  than  bees  that 
Dante's  proclivities  for  nature  study  are  most  evident. 
When  in  the  Purgatorio,  in  the  twenty-sixth  canto,  Dante 
would  describe  the  meeting  of  souls  in  Paradise  who 
kiss  each  other  as  they  speed  on  their  way,  he  compares 
them  to  the  ants  who  as  they  meet  one  another  touch  an- 
tennaB,  thus  communicating  various  messages,  and  then 
go  on  their  way.  The  passage  is  very  striking  because,  as 
Dean  Plumptre  remarks,  the  picture  drawn  reminds  one 
almost  of  Sir  John  Lubbock's  ant  studies,  or  the  remark- 
able descriptions  of  ant  life  in  Bishop  Ken's  Hymnotheo. 
Dante's  lines  are  as  follows  :— 


360  THE   POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

"  So  oft,  within  their  dusk  brown  host  proceed 
This  ant  and  that,  till  muzzle  muzzle  meet ; 
Spying  their  way,  or  how  affairs  succeed." 

Thus  did  Dante  know  the  whole  round  of  science  in 
his  time  better  than  any  modern  university  man.  People 
who  take  exception  to  his  knowledge  fail  to  realize  its 
environment.  They  may  smile  a  little  scornfully  now  at 
his  complacent  acceptance  of  the  Ptolemaic  system  with- 
out a  question,  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  for 
three  centuries  after  his  time  educated  men  still  con- 
tinued to  accept  it,  and  that  even  the  distinguished 
Jesuit  astronomer,  Clavius,  to  whom  we  owe  the  Gregor- 
ian reformation  of  the  calendar  and  the  restoration  of 
the  year  to  its  proper  place  as  regards  the  heavens,  not 
only  accepted  it,  but  worked  out  his  calendar  reform 
problems  by  means  of  it  Clavius 's  great  contemporary, 
Tycho-Brahe,  the  distinguished  Danish  astronomer, 
found  no  reason  to  reject  it  Even  Lord  Bacon,  who 
with  perverted  historical  sense  is  still  proclaimed  the 
father  of  modern  experimental  science,  also  accepted  the 
Ptolemaic  system,  and  found  that  it  thoroughly  explained 
all  the  phenomena  of  the  heavens,  while  he  rejected  the 
Copernican  system,  then  nearly  a  century  before  the 
world,  because  he  thought  it  did  not.  The  surprise,  how- 
ever, is  not  in  Dante's  knowledge  of  astronomy,  but  in 
his  familiarity  with,  details  of  biology  that  enables  him 
to  reason,  though  in  poetic- language,  with  straightfor- 
ward and  logical  directness  with  regard  to  basic  thought 
in  this  science  that  is  usually  considered  so  thoroughly 
modern. 

Another  surprising  feature  is  the  knowledge  of  the 
habits  of  birds  and  of  insects.  Our  modern  students  of 


UNIVERSITY    MAN    AND    SCIENCE  361 

nature  are  supposed  to  be  the  first  who  went  deeply 
enough  into  these  subjects  to  make  them  material  for 
literature.  Here,  however,  is  Dante  describing,  in  a  few 
picturesque  words,  characteristic  peculiarities  of  birds 
and  insects,  which  our  modern  writers  spend  pages  over, 
yet  tell  us  scarcely  more  about  them.  A  little  knowledge 
of  Dante  is  evidently  the  best  antidote  that  our  genera- 
tion can  have  for  that  foolish  persuasion  that  the  Middle 
Ages  were  ignorant  of  science  and  that  the  universities 
taught  nothing  but  nonsense  about  nature. 

I  am  tempted  to  add  just  a  few  pargraphs  with  regard 
to  another  aspect  of  Dante's  scientific  interests  which 
assimilates  him  to  the  modern  educated  man.  Education 
itself  would  seem  to  be  one  of  the  sciences  the  develop- 
ment of  which  was  surely  left  to  a  late  and  more  con- 
scious age.  There  are,  however,  as  has  been  pointed 
out  by  Brother  Azarias,  quite  enough  materials  in  Dante's 
works  to  show  that  a  serious  student  who  was,  however, 
only  a  literary  man  and  not  an  educator,  had  many 
thoughts  with  regard  to  the  practical  side  of  education, 
and  had  come  to  many  conclusions  with  regard  to  how 
it  should  be  carried  on,  that  are  anticipations  of  the  most 
fruitful  thoughts  of  our  modern  educators  and  that  have 
formed  the  subject  of  many  theses  on  education  down 
to  our  own  day.  Education  is,  of  course,  scarcely  one 
of  the  physical  sciences,  yet  since  its  subject-matter  is 
mainly  the  child  and  the  developing  human  intellect, 
and  in  that  sense  it  is  nature  study  in  its  highest  form, 
this  aspect  of  Dante's  thinking  also  deserves  to  be  given 
due  weight  here.  Brother  Azarias  says  :— 

* '  It  is  the  mission  of  the  poet  to  reflect  in  his  work 
the  predominant,  all-pervading  spirit  and  views  of  his 
age.  Now,  in  his  day,  the  universities  were  the  con- 


362  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

trolling  element  in  thought,  in  art,  in  politics,  moulding 
the  thinkers  and  rulers  of  the  age  both  in  church  and 
state.  But  Dante  was  a  life-long  student.  He  traveled 
from  land  to  land  and  from  school  to  school,  and  sat  im- 
patiently, yet  humbly,  at  the  feet  of  masters,  imbibing 
whatever  knowledge  they  could  convey.  He  disputed  in 
public.  His  bright  eyes  and  strong,  sombre,  reserved 
features  attracted  the  attention  of  fellow  students  as  he 
wended  his  way,  absorbed  in  his  own  thoughts,  through 
the  rue  de  Fouarre  and  entered  the  hall  in  which  Siger 
was  holding  forth.  Tradition  has  it  that  he  was  no  less 
assiduous  a  frequenter  of  School  Street  in  Oxford.  He 
has  left  us  no  distinct  treatise  on  education  ;  but  he  who 
embodied  all  the  science  of  his  day,  who  was  supreme  in 
teaching  so  many  other  lessons,  could  not  be  silent  in 
regard  to  pedagogy.  From  his  writings  a  whole  volume 
of  rules  and  principles  bearing  upon  education  might  be 
gleaned.  In  '  II  Convito '  he  expresses  himself  fully  on 
the  different  ages  of  human  growth  and  development ; 
speaks  of  obedience  as  an  essential  requisite  for  the 
child ;  after  his  father  he  should  obey  his  master  and 
his  elders.  He  should  also  be  gentle  and  modest,  rever- 
ent and  eager  to  acquire  knowledge ;  reserved,  never 
forward  ;  repentant  of  his  faults  to  the  extent  of  over- 
coming them.  As  our  soul  in  all  its  operations  makes 
use  of  a  bodily  organ,  it  behooves  us  to  exercise  the 
body,  that  it  grow  in  grace  and  aptness,  and  be  well 
ordained  and  disposed  in  order  that  the  soul  may  control 
it  to  the  best  advantage.  Thus  it  is  that  a  noble  nature 
seeks  to  have  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body." 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED. 

It  is  especially  with  regard  to  the  attitude  of  the 
churchmen,  the  people,  and  even  the  physicians  of  the 
Middle  Ages  toward  insanity,  that  most  opprobrium  has 
been  heaped  upon  the  Church  and  her  teachings  in  the 
so-called  histories  of  the  relations  of  science  to  theol- 
ogy or  faith.  Much  of  what  has  been  said  that  has  been 
supposed  to  tell  worst  against  the  Church,  however, 
should  not  rest  upon  the  shoulders  of  ecclesiastics,  and 
should  not  be  set  down  to  the  evil  effect  of  theology. 
It  is  easy  now  to  look  back  and  blame  men  for  the  ac- 
ceptance of  supernatural  agencies  as  causes  in  nearly  all 
cases  of  mental  and  nervous  diseases,  but  the  reason  for 
this  is  rather  to  be  looked  for  in  the  nature  of  man  than 
in  his  belief  in  religion.  Ethnology  shows  us  traces  of  it 
everywhere.  Our  American  Indians,  long  before  any 
tincture  of  Christianity,  and  before  any  hint  of  theol- 
ogy of  any  kind  reached  them,  beyond  that  which  de- 
velops spontaneously  from  the  depths  of  their  natural 
faculties,  believed  in  the  effect  of  the  evil  spirits  in 
producing  disease,  and,  of  course,  particularly  the 
mental  diseases  which  made  men  do  things  so  contrary  to 
their  own  interests,  and  often  so  harmful  to  the  beings 
they  loved  best  in  the  world. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  they  had  not  yet  outgrown  this 
primitive  way  of  looking  at  mental  diseases.  For  that 
matter,  we  have  not  even  as  yet.  The  intelligent 
classes  in  the  community  are,  as  a  rule,  convinced  of 
the  physical  basis  of  mental  diseases,  but  there  are  a 

(363) 


364  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

great  many  people  who  still  are  inclined  to  think  that 
some  of  them,  at  least,  are  manifestations  of  some 
punitive  force  outside  of  the  patients  themselves,  or 
even  some  manifestation  of  ill-understood  forces  quite 
apart  from  matter.  Not  all  the  thinking  people  of  the 
Middle  Ages  accepted  all  the  absurd  notions  sometimes 
rehearsed  in  this  matter,  but  as  in  our  own  time,  foolish 
traditions  and  superstitions  dominated  the  unthinking 
classes,  which  form  still,  unfortunately,  the  great  mass 
of  mankind.  We  have  had  just  the  opposite  delusions 
forced  upon  our  attention  in  our  own  day.  Large  num- 
bers, supposedly  of  intelligent  people,  have  pretended 
to  believe  or  have  definitely  accepted  the  teaching  that 
disease  is  nothing.  This  is  quite  as  foolish  as  attribut- 
ing to  spiritual  agencies  what  has  come  to  be  recognized 
as  due  to  physical  factors.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  our 
generation  and  its  thinking  shall  not  be  judged  by  future 
generations  to  have  been  utterly  foolish,  just  because  a 
few  millions  of  us  accepted  Eddyism,  —and  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  these  are  not,  as  a  rule,  the  uneducated. 
Another  side  of  this  question  is  even  more  interesting, 
or  at  least  has  become  so  during  the  last  twenty  years. 
A  generation  ago  it  was  the  custom  to  scoff  not  a  little 
scornfully  in  scientific,  circles,  at  the  idea  of  admitting 
even  the  possibility  of  the  interference  of  immaterial  or 
spiritual  agencies,  or  of  any  other  intelligences  or  wills 
at  work  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  this  life,  than  those  of 
men.  This  scornful  attitude  still  continues  to  be  the 
pose  of  many  students  and  teachers  of  science.  It  is 
by  no  means  so  universal  as  it  was,  however.  Strik- 
ingly enough,  the  converts  from  this  attitude  of  mind 
have  come,  not  from  the  lower  ranks  of  teachers  of 
science,  but  from  among  the  very  leaders  in  original 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  365 

research  and  scientific  investigation.  We  may  still  con- 
tinue to  laugh  at  and  ridicule  the  medieval  people  for 
their  admission  of  the  activity  of  spirits  in  ordinary 
mundane  affairs,  but  if  we  do  so,  we  must  also  laugh  at 
and  ridicule  just  as  much,  such  prominent  leaders  of 
scientific  thought  and  progress  as  Sir  William  Crookes, 
Mr.  Alfred  Russell  Wallace,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Professor 
Charles  Richet,  the  distinguished  French  physiologist, 
Flammarion  the  astronomer,  and  even  of  late  years 
Professor  Lombroso,  the  well-known  Italian  criminolo- 
gist,  whose  special  doctrines  as  to  crime  and  criminals 
would  apparently  insure  him  against  such  theories  as 
those  of  the  spiritualists.  All  of  these  men  have  con- 
fessed their  belief  not  only  in  the  possibility  of  spiritual 
interference  in  this  world  of  ours,  but  insist  that  they 
have  seen  such  interference,  and  are  absolutely  con- 
vinced of  its  frequent  occurrence. 

This  is  a  decided  reaction  from  previous  states  of  the 
scientific  mind  on  this  subject,  and  represents  a  retro- 
version  to  medieval  modes  of  thought  that  may  be 
deprecated  by  scientific  investigators  of  materialistic 
tendencies,  but  that  cannot  be  neglected,  and  must  not 
be  despised.  When  the  results  of  these  recent  investi- 
gations are  taken  into  account,  the  opprobrium  which 
has  been  heaped  upon  medieval  scholars  and  churchmen 
for  the  facility  with  which  they  accepted  the  doctrine 
of  the  interference  of  spirits  in  human  life,  must  be 
minimized  to  such  a  degree,  or  indeed  eradicated  so 
entirely,  that  a  saner  view  of  the  whole  situation  as 
regards  the  relationship  of  the  spiritual  and  material 
world  seems  likely  to  prevail.  It  is  easy  and  cheap  to 
reject  without  more  ado  and  without  serious  considera- 
tion, such  evidence  of  spiritual  manifestations  as  has 


366  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

convinced  these  leaders  of  scientific  thought.  But  this 
rejection  is  not  scientific,  nor  does  it  show  an  open  mind. 
What  is  needed  is  a  calm  review  of  the  situation,  in 
order  to  see  just  where  truth  lies.  It  is  not  at  either 
extreme.  It  is  not  in  too  great  credulity  with  regard 
to  spiritual  interference,  but  certainly  not  at  the  oppo- 
site pole  of  the  negation  of  all  spiritual  influence  in 
human  life,  that  genuine  progress  in  knowledge  is  to 
come.  This  premised,  we  may  take  up  the  considera- 
tion of  the  actual  accomplishment  of  the  Middle  Ages 
with  regard  to  the  insane,  better  prepared  to  appreciate 
their  point  of  view  and  to  get  at  the  significance  of  their 
attitude  toward  the  mentally  diseased. 

There  are  two  phases  of  this  question  of  the  attitude 
of  even  intelligent  men  of  the  Middle  Ages  toward 
nervous  and  mental  diseases,  that  deserve  to  be  studied, 
not  superficially,  but  in  their  actual  relationships  to  the 
men  of  that  time,  and  to  our  opinions  at  the  present 
day.  These  are:  first,  the  question  of  the  treatment  of 
the  mentally  afflicted,  and  second,  the  mystery  of  de- 
moniacal possession  and  its  related  phenomenon— medi- 
umship,  as  we  call  it. 

Personally,  I  was  very  much  surprised  some  years 
ago,  while  collecting  material  for  a  paper  to  be  read 
before  the  International  Guild  for  the  Care  of  the 
Insane,  to  find  how  many  things  that  are  most  modern 
in  our  methods  of  treating  the  insane,  and  that  are 
among  the  desiderata  which  are  universally  conceded  to 
be  most  necessary  for  the  improvement  of  present  con- 
ditions in  our  management  of  mental  diseases,  were 
anticipated  by  the  generations  of  the  thirteenth  to  the 
fifteenth  centuries.  It  is  not  hard,  for  instance,  to 
show  that  such  eminently  desirable  conditions  as  the 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  367 

open  door  for  mild  cases,  the  combination  of  the  ordi- 
nary hospital  with  a  ward  for  psychic  cases,  the  colony 
system  for  the  treatment  of  those  of  lower  mentality, 
were  all  in  existence  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  did  good 
work.  The  colony  system  particularly,  as  it  comes  to  us 
from  the  Middle  Ages,  has  recently  been  studied  very 
carefully,  and  this  has  given  us  many  valuable  hints  as 
to  the  methods  that  will  have  to  be  adopted  in  other 
countries  in  modern  times. 

The  conditions  which  developed  at  Gheel  in  Belgium 
have  deservedly  attracted  much  attention  in  recent 
times,  and  have  been  the  subject  of  articles  in  the  medical 
journals  of  nearly  every  country  in  the  world,  because 
of  the  poignant  realization  by  our  generation  that  large 
institutions,  meaning  by  this  large  single  buildings  or 
closely  associated  groups  of  buildings,  are  very  unfa- 
vorable for  the  care  of  the  insane.  In  America,  one  of 
these  articles  was  published  in  the  Journal  of  Nervous 
and  Mental  Diseases,  and  a  second,  written  by  my 
friend,  Dr.  Jelliffe,  who  is  the  Professor  of  Mental 
Diseases  in  Fordham  University  School  of  Medicine, 
was  written  after  a  special  visit  paid  to  Gheel  by  him, 
in  order  to  investigate  conditions  there.  Though  the 
situation  at  Gheel  now  is  practically  identical  with  that 
which  originated  there  at  least  five  centuries  ago,  there 
are  many  who  consider  that  similar  conditions  would  be 
ideal  for  the  treatment  of  certain  classes  of  the  insane 
even  in  our  own  day.  It  is  this  sort  of  interpretation 
of  the  work  of  these  old-time  philanthropists  and  physi- 
cians that  we  need,  and  not  the  cheap  condemnation 
which  makes  it  necessary  for  us  to  begin  all  over  again 
in  each  generation. 

In  the  light  of  this  unexpected  revelation  and  the 


368  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

consequent  revolution  of  thought  it  suggests,  a  short 
review  of  the  treatment  of  the  insane  will  not  be  out  of 
place.  It  is  usual  for  our  self-complacent  generation 
to  consider  that  it  was  not  until  our  own  time  that 
rational  measures  for  the  care  of  the  insane  were 
taken.  Most  of  the  text-books  on  mental  diseases  that 
touch  at  all  on  the  historical  aspects  of  the  treatment 
question,  are  apt  to  say  that  the  evolution  of  methods  for 
the  treatment  and  cure  of  the  insane  might  be  divided 
into  four  historical  periods:  First,  the  era  of  exorcism, 
on  the  theory  that  insane  patients  were  possessed  of 
devils.  Second,  the  chain  and  dungeon  era,  during  which 
persons  exhibiting  signs  of  insanity  were  imprisoned 
and  shackled  in  such  a  manner  as  to  prevent  the  inflic- 
tion of  injury  upon  others.  Third,  the  era  of  asylums. 
Fourth,  the  present  era  of  psychopathic  wards  in  gen- 
eral hospitals  for  the  acutely  insane  in  cities,  and  col- 
onies for  the  chronic  insane  in  the  country,  which  is 
only  just  beginning  to  develop. 

From  this  classification,  the  ordinary  reader  would 
suppose  that  nothing  at  all  was  done  for  the  insane 
during  the  first  two  periods,  except  exorcism  in  one  and 
confinement  in  the  other.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
number  of  the  harmlessly  insane  has  always  been  much 
larger  than  the  violent,  and  the  latter,  indeed,  consti- 
tute only  a  very  small  portion  of  the  mentally  ailing  at 
any  period.  Exorcism,  as  a  rule,  was  applied  only  to 
the  violent  and  to  the  hysterical.  In  the  asylums  at  all 
times  there  were  a  number  of  patients  who  were  not 
chained  or  confined  to  any  great  degree,  and  unless  one 
had  shown  some  special  violent  manifestation,  severe 
measures  were  not  taken.  It  is  the  treatment  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  insane  rather  than  of  the  few  excep- 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  369 

tional  cases,  that  must  be  considered  as  representing 
the  attitude  of  mind  of  the  generations  of  the  Middle 
Age  toward  the  mentally  afflicted,  and  not  what  they 
found  themselves  compelled  to  do  because  of  their  fear 
and  dread  of  violence. 

For  those  who  were  mentally  afflicted  in  a  mild 
degree,  abundant  suitable  provision  was  made  by  the 
generations  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries. 
When  historical  writers  suggest  the  contrary,  they  are 
only  making  one  of  the  usual  assumptions  from  igno- 
rance of  the  details.  Because  in  some  cases  insanity 
was  supposed  to  be  due  to  possession  by  the  devil,  to 
say  that,  therefore,  in  all  cases  no  provision  was  made 
for  the  insane  is  nonsense.  It  is  comparatively  easy  to 
find,  from  records  of  the  hospitals  of  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries,  that  there  were  what  we  now 
call  psychopathic  wards  for  the  acutely  insane  in  the 
cities,  and  some  colonies  for  the  chronic  insane  in 
country  places. 

Knowing  nothing  of  this,  Prof.  White,  for  instance, 
says :  "The  stream  of  Christian  endeavor,  so  far  as  the 
insane  were  concerned,  was  almost  entirely  cut  off. 
In  all  the  beautiful  provision  during  the  Middle  Ages 
for  the  alleviation  of  human  suffering,  there  was  for 
the  insane  almost  no  care.  Some  monasteries  indeed 
gave  them  refuge.  We  hear  of  a  charitable  work  done 
for  them  at  the  London  Bethlehem  Hospital  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  at  Geneva  in  the  fifteenth,  at  Marseilles 
in  the  sixteenth,  by  the  Black  Penitents  in  the  South  of 
France,  by  certain  Franciscans  in  Northern  France,  by 
the  Alexian  Brothers  on  the  Rhine,  and  by  various 
agencies  in  other  parts  of  Europe;  but,  curiously  enough, 
the  only  really  important  effort  in  the  Christian  Church 


370  THE    POPES   AND    SCIENCE 

was  stimulated  by  the  Mohammedans. "  This  last  clause 
is  a  slur  on  Christianity  absolutely  without  justification. 
As  is  true  for  all  broad  generalizations,  to  ignore  thus  the 
work  of  caring  for  the  insane  and  the  methods  employed 
in  earlier  times,  amounts  to  deplorable  injustice  to  gen- 
erations whose  provision  for  the  sick  of  every  class  was 
not  only  much  more  abundant,  but  more  rational  and 
complete,  than  it  has  been  our  custom  to  recognize  and 
acknowledge.  The  earliest  city  hospitals  that  we  know 
of  were  due  to  the  fatherly  care  and  providence  of  that 
great  Pope,  Innocent  III.,  whose  pontificate  (1198-1213) 
has  been  more  misunderstood  than  perhaps  any  corre- 
sponding period  of  time  in  history.  It  was  Virchow,  the 
great  German  pathologist,  whose  sympathies  with  the 
Papacy  were  very  slight,  and  whose  attitude  in  the 
Kulturkampf  in  Germany  showed  him  to  be  a  strenuous 
opponent  of  the  Papal  policy,  who  paid  the  high  tribute 
to  Pope  Innocent  III.  which  we  quote  in  the  chapter  on 
the  Foundation  of  City  Hospitals.  It  was  in  connection 
with  these  hospitals  founded  by  Pope  Innocent  III.,  or 
the  result  of  the  movement  initiated  by  him,  that  the 
insane  were  cared  for  at  first.  This  may  seem  to  have 
been  an  undesirable  method,  but  at  the  present  time 
there  is  an  almost  universal  demand  on  the  part  of  ex- 
perts in  mental  diseases  for  wards  for  the  mentally  dis- 
eased in  connection  with  city  hospitals,  because  admis- 
sion is  thus  facilitated,  treatment  is  begun  earlier,  the 
patient  is  not  left  in  unsuitable  conditions  so  long, 
friends  are  readier  to  take  measures  to  bring  the  patient 
under  proper  treatment  and  surveillance,  and,  as  a  con- 
sequence, more  of  the  acutely  insane  have  the  course  of 
their  disease  modified  at  once,  and  more  cures  take  place 
than  would  otherwise  be  possible.  Of  course,  this  was 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  371 

not  the  idea  of  the  original  founder  of  the  medieval  hos- 
pitals, or  even  the  conscious  plan  of  those  who  were  in 
charge.  They  had  to  take  the  mentally  infirm  because 
there  was  nowhere  else  for  them  to  go  at  that  time.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  their  simple  method  of 
procedure  was  better  in  the  end  for  the  patient  than  is 
our  more  complex  method  of  admission  to  insane  asylums, 
with  its  disturbing  necessity  for  formal  examination  of 
the  patient  under  circumstances  that  are  likely  to  in- 
crease any  excitement  that  he  may  be  laboring  under. 
And  the  transfer  to  an  institution  bearing  the  dreaded 
name  of  asylum,  or  even  sanitarium  (for  that  term  has 
taken  quite  as  ominous  a  meaning  in  recent  years)  is 
sure  to  aggravate  the  patient's  irritated  state,  and  to 
exaggerate  symptoms  which  might  otherwise  be  relieved 
by  prompt,  soothing  care,  and  by  the  consciousness  that 
his  ailment  is  being  treated  rather  than  that  he  himself 
is  being  placed  in  durance. 

An  examination  of  the  methods  for  the  care  of 
the  insane  in  the  Middle  Ages  brings  out  clearly 
the  fact,  that  the  modern  generation  may  learn  from 
those  old  Catholic  humanitarians,  whose  hearts  and 
whose  charity  served  so  well  to  make  up  for  any  defi- 
ciericies  of  intellect  or  of  science  the  moderns  would  pre- 
sume them  to  have  labored  under.  There  are  said  to  be 
three  great  desiderata  for  the  intelligent  care  for  the 
insane : 

First :  The  open  door  system,  permitting  patients  who 
are  not  violent,  and  who  can  be  trusted  even  though 
they  have  many  queer  notions,  to  come  and  go  at  will. 

Second :  The  after  care  treatment  of  those  who  have 
been  insane,  to  the  end  that  they  may  not  be  compelled  to 
go  back  to  strenuous  lives  of  toil ;  and  above  all,  that  they 


372  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

may  not  be  forced  into  the  too  harrassing  conditions  of 
which  their  mental  breakdown  originally  was  born. 

Third  :  A  colony  system  by  which  patients  of  lowered 
intelligence  may  be  cared  for  in  the  country,  far  away 
from  the  stress  of  city  life,  and  where,  without  the  cares 
of  existence  pressing  upon  them,  they  may  be  surrounded 
by  gentle,  patient,  kindly  friends  who  will  make  every 
allowance  for  their  peculiarities  and  strive  to  help  them 
in  their  up-hill  struggles. 

These  desiderata  are  so  absolutely  modern  that  they 
have  only  been  formulated  definitely  with  the  beginning 
of  the  twentieth  century.  Notwithstanding  this  apparent 
newness,  I  think  that  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  show  that 
the  old-time  methods  of  caring  for  the  insane  partook, 
to  a  greater  degree  than  would  be  suspected  at  the 
present  time,  of  these  desirable  qualities  that  modern 
science  has  come  to  recognize  as  so  indispensable  for  the 
rational  care  of  the  mentally  unbalanced.  In  saying  this 
I  do  not  wish  to  claim  for  the  Middle  Ages  accomplish- 
ments beyond  their  deserts.  My  idea  is  rather  to  write 
an  interpretation  ;  to  make  clear  from  what  we  know  of 
the  details  of  the  care  of  the  insane  in  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries,  that  unconsciously  those  genera- 
tions, in  their  large-hearted  charity,  anticipated  what  is 
best  in  our  present  system. 

The  first  record  in  English  medical  literature  of  a 
home  for  the  insane  is  that  of  Bethlehem  Royal  Hospital, 
London,  which  has  become  famous  under  the  familiar 
shortened  name  of  Bedlam,  meaning  a  house  or  place  of 
confusion.  Bethlehem  was  a  general  hospital  into  which 
during  the  fourteenth  century  insane  patients  were  ad- 
mitted. There  is  a  historical  record  to  the  effect  that  at 
the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century  a  royal  commission 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  373 

investigated  the  methods  of  treating  the  insane  in  vogue 
there,  because  there  had  been  complaint  of  abuses  in  the 
institution.  Practically  every  century  since  there  have 
been  written  corresponding  records  of  similar  investiga- 
tions. The  trouble  seems  always  to  have  been  that  there 
were  too  few  attendants  properly  to  take  care  of  insane 
patients,  and  thus  they  had  to  be  placed  in  confinement 
in  various  ways,  which  inevitably  led  to  abuses. 

For  a  generation  or  longer  after  each  exposure  by  a 
committee  of  inspection,  the  evils  of  this  system  would 
be  more  or  less  tolerable  ;  then  they  would  become  un- 
bearable once  more  and  another  investigation  would  be 
demanded.  I  would  like  to  feel  that  we  have  progressed 
in  all  respects  beyond  these  hit  and  miss  methods,  but 
any  one  familiar  with  the  present  situation  in  the  matter 
is  quite  well  aware  that  there  are  still  many  abuses  that 
need  correction,  and  inspection  committees  find  many 
suggestions  to  make  and  sometimes  gross  evils  to  stig- 
matize. 

Bedlam  seems,  however,  to  have  always  been  as  well 
and  as  humanely  conducted  as  the  spirit  of  the  times 
demanded.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  according  to 
well  authenticated  tradition,  a  very  large  part  of  the 
hospital's  income  was  obtained  by  the  collection  of  fees 
for  the  admittance  of  visitors  who  came  to  be  amused 
by  the  vagaries  of  the  insane.  The  number  visiting  the 
asylum  for  this  purpose  must  have  been  enormous,  for, 
though  only  a  penny  was  charged  for  admission,  the  re- 
sulting revenue  is  said  to  have  amounted  to  four  hundred 
pounds  sterling  a  year,  showing  that  nearly  one  hundred 
thousand  persons  had  visited  the  institution. 

From  generations  that  were  pleased  to  derive  morbid 
amusement  out  of  the  misfortunes  of  others,  human- 


374  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

itarian  care  of  the  insane  could  not  be  reasonably  ex- 
pected ;  but  in  view  of  this  custom  it  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand how  there  could  have  been  at  this  period  any  great 
abuse  of  patients,  in  the  matter  of  severe  punishments 
or  inhuman  restraint. 

Some  of  the  customs  of  the  old-time  hospitals  were 
interesting.  It  was  believed  that  the  one  chance  for  an 
insane  patient  to  recover  lay  in  trusting  him  somewhat, 
allowing  him  even  to  go  unattended  outside  the  walls  at 
times.  Patients  in  Bedlam  were  permitted  to  go  out 
alone  after  they  improved  in  health,  and  if  they  were 
poor  they  were  allowed  to  obtain  their  living  by  means 
of  begging.  In  order  that  they  might  more  easily  work 
upon  public  sympathy,  they  were  permitted  to  wear  tin 
plates  fastened  to  their  arms.  The  wearers  of  these 
were  called  " Bedlams, "  or  " Bedlamites "  or  ''Bedlam 
beggars, "  and  tradition  says  that  they  received  much 
more  consideration  than  ordinary  beggars. 

It  may  appear  that  this  was  dangerous  liberty,  but  the 
ordinary  person1  is  apt  to  consider  as  dangerous  the  open 
door  treatment  of  the  insane  which  most  alienists  now 
hold  to  be  the  most  commendable  feature  of  present  day 
treatment.  It  seems  reasonable  that  to  permit  patients 
to  go  into  the  open  air  and  sunshine  was  better  than 
confining  them  in  the  hospital,  and  doubtless  the  insignia 
which  they  wore  especially  commended  them  to  the  care 
and  alms  and  sympathy  of  the  people. 

Much  has  been  said  with  regard  to  the  alleged  neglect 
and  abuse  of  the  insane  during  the  period  of  exorcism, 
because  of  the  misunderstanding  of  the  cause  of  the 
disease.  There  are  persons  who  consider  neurasthenia 
and  major-hysteria  as  more  or  less  modern  forms  of 
nervous  diseases,  but  it  is  more  than  probable  that  they 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  375 

existed  with  considerable  frequency  in  the  olden  time. 
Many  of  these  cases  would  be  cured  by  strong  sugges- 
tions, that  is,  by  the  treatment  usually  given  to  supposed 
possessed  persons,  and  as  we  know  that  the  best  possible 
treatment  for  certain  forms  of  major-hysteria  is  to 
frighten  the  patient  (the  earthquake  at  San  Francisco 
cured  a  dozen  persons  who  had  not  been  regarded  as 
able  to  walk,  some  of  them  for  years) ,  it  is  probable  that  a 
goodly  number  of  the  patients  of  the  past  were  cured 
by  the  rather  heroic  measures  sometimes  devised.  Sir 
Thomas  More  mentions  such  cases,  and  though  himself 
eminently  humane,  commends  this  method  of  treatment 
4 'in  which  such  patients  were  severely  scourged  and 
thoroughly  aroused  from  their  willfulness. " 

When  psychiatrists  talk  slightingly  of  the  old-time 
methods  of  caring  for  the  insane,  it  is  well  to  recall  that, 
considering  the  conditions  and  limitations  of  scientific 
knowledge,  they  seem  to  have  done  very  well  in  those 
times.  It  has  been  the  custom  of  critics  to  hold  up  to 
ridicule  that  insane  patients  were  sometimes  taken  to 
special  shrines  in  order  that  their  ills  might  be  cured  by 
the  direct  interposition  of  Heaven ;  or  that  the  devil 
supposed  to  possess  them,  might  be  driven  out.  It  must 
not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  such  procedures  were  of 
supreme  utility  in  mild  cases  viewed  merely  from  the 
human  standpoint,  and  without  any  appeal  to  the  super- 
natural. The  journey  to  a  favorite  shrine,  undertaken 
under  conditions  that  gave  variety  to  life  and  new  inter- 
ests, together  with  the  hope  aroused  while  there,  were 
sufficient  to  help  the  patient  physically  and,  not  infre- 
quently, mentally. 

Some  of  the  most  distinguished  specialists  in  mental 
diseases  in  Germany,  France  and  England  are  on  record 


376  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

as  believing  that  one  of  the  most  helpful  agencies  in  the 
relief  of  certain  symptoms  of  mental  disturbance,  and 
even  the  cure  of  milder  forms  of  insanity,  is  confidence 
in  the  Almighty  as  expressed  by  prayer.  At  a  meeting 
of  the  British  Medical  Association  two  years  ago,  this 
idea  was  expressed  very  forcibly  by  a  distinguished 
specialist,  and  was  concurred  in  by  a  number  of  those 
at  the  meeting  of  the  Section  on  Mental  Diseases.  He 
said : 

"  As  an  alienist  and  one  whose  life  has  been  concerned 
with  the  suffering  of  the  mind,  I  would  state  that  of  all 
hygienic  measures  to  counteract  disturbed  sleep,  de- 
pressed spirits  and  all  of  the  miserable  sequels  of  a  dis- 
tressed mind,  I  would  undoubtedly  give  the  first  place  to 
the  simple  habit  of  prayer.  *  *  *  Such  a  habit  does 
more  to  calm  the  spirit  and  strenghten  the  soul  to  over- 
come mere  incidental  emotionalism  than  any  other 
therapeutic  agent  known  to  me." 

The  medieval  peoples  realized  this,  and  finding  it  bene- 
ficial, used  it  to  decided  advantage  in  a  large  number  of 
cases. 

Occasionally  some  very  striking  developments  resulted 
from  pilgrimages  made  for  the  cure  of  the  insane.  A 
typical  instance  is  to  be  found  at  the  shrine  of  St 
Dympna  in  Belgium.  Many  persons  in  various  stages 
and  differing  forms  of  mental  derangement  were  accus- 
tomed to  go  or  be  taken  to  the  shrine  of  this  Irish  girl 
missionary,  whose  martyrdom  had  so  elevated  her  in  the 
estimation  of  the  people  of  the  neighborhood  that  they 
thought  her  tomb  worthy  of  special  reverence.  The 
sufferers  who  journeyed  thither  frequently  lingered  for 
some  time  in  order  to  invoke  the  aid  of  the  Saint,  and, 
if  possible,  secure  her  intercession  for  the  relief  of  their 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  377 

ailments.  Many  of  them  were  found  to  get  along  better 
in  the  quiet  of  the  little  village  than  they  had  done  in 
their  homes,  and  as  they  were  simply  quartered  among 
the  people  of  the  village,  their  friends  were  able  for  a 
trifling  pecuniary  consideration  to  secure  their  main- 
tenance there  for  an  indefinite  period,  in  the  hope  that 
what  the  Saint  had  not  granted  at  the  beginning  might 
be  obtained  by  more  assiduous  devotion  at  her  shrine. 
At  first  the  friends  probably  intended  to  come  back  and 
take  the  patients  away,  but  after  a  time,  finding  that 
they  got  along  so  well  near  the  shrine,  they  gradually 
learned  to  leave  them  there  entirely.  Thus  originated 
the  famous  insane  colony  at  Gheel  which  has  in  recent 
years  been  the  subject  of  more  attention  on  the  part  of 
alienists  the  world  over  than  almost  any  other  therapeu- 
tic method  of  our  time.  This  medieval  invention  of 
caring  for  the  non-violent  insane,  especially  those  of  low 
grades  of  intelligence,  in  the  midst  of  small  families, 
where  none  of  the  cares  of  life  burden  them  and  where 
they  have  occupation  of  mind  and  body  and  certain 
human  interests,  such  as  might  appeal  to  their  weakened 
intelligence,  is  probably  the  ideal  method  of  caring  for 
such  patients.  Certain  it  is  that  it  is  much  better  than 
the  large  institutional  system,  the  invention  of  succeed- 
ing centuries,  from  which  we  are  now  trying  to  get 
away  as  fast  and  as  far  as  possible. 

The  Gheel  mode  of  caring  for  the  insane  is  really  the 
colony  system  that  is  now  universally  recognized  as  the 
most  favorable  mode  of  treatment  for  these  patients.  It 
seems  not  unlikely  that  there  was  much  more  of  this 
practice  during  the  Middle  Ages  in  Europe  than  we  have 
any  idea  of. 

With  regard  to  the  serious  accusations  so  often  made 


378  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

against  the  people  of  the  Middle  Ages  for  their  cruelty 
to  the  insane,  not  much  apology  will  be  needed  by  those 
who  know  anything  about  the  treatment  of  the  insane, 
even  in  quite  recent  times.  Measures  of  rigid  restraint 
were  employed  for  dangerous  cases.  Patients  who  had 
shown  manifestations  of  violence  were  likely  to  be 
chained.  Severe  and  unusual  punishments  were  some- 
times inflicted.  Of  all  this  there  is  no  doubt.  Abuses 
crept  into  institutions.  The  insane  were  sometimes 
brutally  treated  or  hideously  neglected.  These,  how- 
ever, are  objections  that  can  be  urged  against  our 
system  of  taking  care  of  the  insane  in  many  places  even 
at  the  present  day.  In  certain  states,  in  order  to  lessen 
the  expense  of  caring  for  the  insane,  they  are  kept  in 
departments  in  the  Poor  Houses,  and  every  now  and 
then  a  legislative  committee  of  investigation  tells  the 
story  of  appalling  evils  that  have  been  discovered.  It 
was  not  because  they  thought  that  possessed  people 
deserved  punishment,  nor  because  they  hoped  thus  to 
get  the  devils  to  go  out  of  them,  that  the  medieval 
generations  allowed  such  things  in  their  asylums,  but 
because  human  nature  will  neglect  its  duties  toward 
the  ailing  unless  carefully  superintended,  and  because 
regular  attendants  become  hardened  in  their  feelings 
sooner  or  later,  when  they  serve  only  for  pay,  and  the 
result  always  is  the  abuse  of  patients. 

In  proportion  to  the  number  of  patients  cared  for, 
there  was  much  more  need  for  restraint  in  those  old 
days  than  at  present.  As  a  rule,  during  the  Middle 
Ages  prisons  and  asylums  were  few.  Only  the  violently 
insane,  who  already  had  actually  committed  some 
serious  crime  or  threatened  to,  were  kept  in  the  asy- 
lums. For  these  restraint  is  needed  even  at  the  present 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  379 

time.  We  have  learned  to  apply  milder  measures  by 
employing  many  more  attendants,  but  even  that  has 
come  only  in  the  last  generation  or  two.  The  milder 
cases  of  insanity  were  not  kept  in  asylums,  but  were 
allowed  to  wander  about  the  country,  or  were  cared  for 
in  their  families  with  a  devotion  of  which  one  finds  no 
example  at  the  present  time;  or  if  the  insane  person 
belonged  to  a  noble  family,  very  often  the  patient  was 
kept  in  the  house  of  a  retainer  and  gently  cared  for.  The 
fact  that  the  milder  cases  were  allowed  to  wander  about 
the  country  might  seem  to  be  dangerous,  but  is  not  so 
serious  as  is  ordinarily  thought.  Only  a  limited  number 
of  insane  patients  are  likely  to  be  violent,  and  these,  as 
a  rule,  show  manifestations  of  it  early  in  the  history  of 
their  affection.  It  was  the  frequent  meeting  with  these 
harmless  insane,  as  they  were  to  be  encountered  in  the 
many  places  through  which  he  wandered  professionally 
in  England,  that  enabled  Shakespeare  to  make  his  pic- 
tures of  insane  characters  so  true  to  life,  that  even  at 
the  present  day  we  are  able  to  recognize  from  his  mar- 
velous description  exactly  the  form  of  insanity  that  was 
present. 

In  a  word,  these  generations  of  the  Middle  Ages 
builded  better  than  they  knew  in  this  matter  of  the 
care  of  the  mentally  afflicted,  as  in  everything  else 
which  they  took  up  for  serious  consideration.  They  did 
only  the  most  obvious  things,  and  what  they  could  not 
very  well  help,  under  the  circumstances,  and  yet  very 
often  the  solutions  of  grave  problems  which  they  hit 
upon  so  naturally,  proved  to  be  as  efficient  as,  indeed 
sometimes  practically  identical  with,  those  we  have 
reached  by  much  more  elaborate  methods.  This  story 
of  the  treatment  of  the  insane  in  the  Middle  Ages 


380  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

deserves  careful  study.  I  have  given  only  a  few  sug- 
gestions for  the  interpretation  of  certain  methods  of 
action  on  their  part,  apparently  very  different  from  our 
ideas,  yet  in  reality  anticipating  our  most  recent  con- 
clusions. 

What  many  people  have  not  been  able  to  forgive  the 
generations    of  the  Middle  Ages,   and  especially  the 
ecclesiastics  of  the  centuries  before  our  own,  is  that  as 
educated  men  and  leaders  of  the  people  they  should 
have  accepted  the  view  that  mental  diseases  may,  in 
some  of  their  forms  at  least,  be  due  to  possession  by 
the  devil  or  some  other  spiritual  interference  with  the 
working  of  the  human  intellect.     During  the  latter  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  became  the  custom  among 
the  educated  to  scoff  at  any  possible  manifestation  of 
this  kind.    The  interference  of  the  spiritual  world  with 
any  of  man's  actions  came  to-be  looked  upon  as  absurd, 
except  by  those  who  still  clung  to  old-time  beliefs  and 
thought  that  new  fashions  in  opinion  might  very  well 
prove  almost  as  variable  as  do  corresponding  fads  in  the 
realm  of  dress  or  of  interests.    The  difficulty  in  the 
matter  was  that  the  generations  of  the  latter  nine- 
teenth century  lost  their  faith,  to  a  great  extent,  in  the 
existence  of  a  spiritual  world,  and  consequently  it  was 
easy  to  laugh  at  those  who  had  found  the  interference 
of  such  a  world  as  not  only  possible,  but  actual,  in  a 
great  many  affairs  in  human  life.    As  a  matter  of  fact, 
when  we  realize  how  many  utterly  inexplicable  phe- 
nomena the  earlier  centuries  tried  to  explain  this  way, 
it  is  not  surprising  to  find  their  explanation  sometimes 
wrong. 

It  is  very  easy,  to  my  mind,  for  men  of  our  genera- 
tion to  be  too  hard  in  their  judgments  of  the  men  of 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  381 

the  Middle  Ages  with  regard  to  the  curious  phenomena, 
psychic,  spiritistic  and  occult,  which,  with  all  our 
advance  in  science,  are  still  almost  as  obscure  to  the 
eye  of  the  intellect  as  they  were  seven  centuries  ago. 
The  medieval  generations  saw  a  great  many  things  that 
they  could  not  explain  happening  round  them,  and 
attributed  them  to  spiritual  agencies.  We  have  learned 
since  that  many  of  these  things  are  merely  natural,  and 
must  not  be  considered  as  due  to  anything  else  than  the 
ordinary  laws  of  nature.  We  have  not  eliminated  belief 
in  the  spiritual  world,  however,  and  there  is  still  a  large 
proportion  of  mankind  who  think  that  they  see,  even  in 
the  matter-of-fact  world  around  them  of  the  present 
day,  many  signs  of  interference  in  human  affairs  by 
agencies  distinct  from  those  of  human  beings  and  quite 
independent  of  matter.  It  is  easy  to  dismiss  this  side 
of  the  question  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  and  say 
that  it  need  not  be  taken  into  account.  A  man  who 
does  this  easily  succeeds  in  convincing  himself  that 
there  are  no  evidences  for  spiritual  manifestations  in 
our  life,  and  that  the  stories  with  regard  to  them  are 
all  nonsense. 

It  is  curious,  however,  that  anyone  who  investigates 
and  does  not  merely  dismiss  at  once,  is  very  prone  to 
come  to  a  contrary  conclusion,  even  though  all  his  train- 
ing and  the  traditions  of  his  education  are  opposed  to 
such  an  admission.  There  are  many  prominent  scientists 
who  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  drawn  into  the 
investigation  of  spiritualistic  manifestations  so-called. 
Very  few  of  them  have  come  away  from  their  investi- 
gations entirely  convinced  that  there  was  nothing  in 
them.  Frauds  they  have  found  ;  sleight-of-hand  imposi- 
tions they  have  exposed  ;  but  apart  from  all  these,  there 


382  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

is  a  residue  of  phenomena  which  they  cannot  explain 
and  which  convinces  many  of  them  of  the  existence  and 
the  mundane  action  of  forces  independent  of  matter. 
The  men  who  come  to  these  conclusions  are  not  only  the 
ignorant,  nor  the  over-credulous,  but  frequently  rep- 
resentative leaders  in  scientific  thought— men  who  are 
known  to  be  thoroughly  capable  of  weighing  evidence, 
prominent  lawyers  and  judges,  above  all,  men  who  are 
accustomed  to  investigation  as  most  painstaking  scien- 
tists and  faithful  students  of  nature. 

A  few  examples  will  illustrate  this.  Mr.  Alfred 
Russell  Wallace,  the  co-discoverer  with  Darwin  of  the 
theory  of  natural  selection,  has  a  name  in  the  scientific 
world  that  places  him  among  the  leaders  of  scientific 
thought.  For  many  years  he  has  been  convinced  that 
spiritualism  contains  in  itself  truths  that  deserve  careful 
investigation,  and  he  for  one  is  persuaded  that  the 
neglect  of  investigation  of  this  subject,  on  the  part  of 
recent  generations,  is  one  of  the  most  serious  mistakes, 
from  a  purely  scientific  standpoint,  that  they  have 
made.  Sir  William  Crookes,  whose  brilliant  theories 
with  regard  to  the  fourth  stage  of  matter,  radiant 
matter,  would  seem  to  have  quite  appropriately  prepared 
him  for  the  proper  investigation  of  existences  even 
beyond  the  domain  of  the  attenuated  substances  with 
which  he  had  been  so  much  concerned,  is  another  of  the 
prominent  scientists  of  the  day  who  confesses  to  a  belief 
in  the  truth  of  spiritualistic  phenomena.  He  made  his 
first  publication  on  the  subject  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago.  When  a  score  of  years  after  this  he  was 
elected  as  the  President  of  the  British  Association  for 
the  Advancement  of  Science,  the  most  prominent  sci- 
entific body  in  Great  Britain,  and,  it  may  be  said,  in  the 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  333 

English-speaking  world,  he  recurred  in  his  Presidential 
address  to  the  subject  of  spiritualism,  and  said  that  in 
the  meantime  he  not  only  had  not  changed  his  mind  with 
regard  to  the  truth  of  certain  spiritualistic  phenomena, 
but  had  even  become  more  convinced  than  he  was  orig- 
inally. 

These  are  prominent  English  scientists,  and  English- 
men are  supposed  to  be  more  conservative,  less  likely  to 
be  influenced  by  personal  motives,  and  less  prone  to  be 
led  astray  by  imaginative  influences,  than  their  col- 
leagues on  the  Continent.  Besides  these  two  whom  we 
have  mentioned,  there  is  a  third  one,  of  quite  as  great 
prominence,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  who  is  also  a  convert  to 
belief  in  the  reality  of  certain  spiritual  manifestations, 
and  other  names  might  readily  be  mentioned.  Over  in 
France,  the  most  prominent  of  living  physiologists, 
Professor  Charles  Richet,  who  is  well  known  for  inves- 
tigating work  of  a  high  order  and  successful  original 
research  that  has  made  his  name  familiar  throughout 
the  medical  world  at  least,  is  another  modern  scientist 
who  cannot  but  think  that  there  is  something  in  spir- 
itualistic manifestations.  The  latest  convert  to  these 
notions  is  an  even  more  surprising  addition  to  such  a 
group  of  witnesses  to  the  possibility  of  the  interference 
of  spirits  with  human  affairs.  This  is  no  less  a  person 
than  Lombroso,  the  well-known  writer  on  criminology, 
who  has  recently  confessed  that  certain  tests  made  by 
him  showed  beyond  all  doubt  that  there  were  influences 
at  work  quite  independent  of  human  powers,  and  show- 
ing the  existence  of  a  world  apart  from  matter.  This 
immaterial  world  evidently  interpenetrates,  and  may 
interfere  with  things  in  the  material  world  as  we 
know  it. 


384  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

In  a  word,  it  may  be  said  that  if  a  man  wants  to 
keep  the  spiritual  side  of  things  out  of  his  purview  of 
life,  he  may  do  so  by  refusing  to  investigate  any  evi- 
dence that  would  demonstrate  the  existence  of  spiritual 
forces  in  the  world  around  him.  The  heavy  price,  how- 
ever, that  he  pays  for  absolute  certainty  and  peace 
of  mind  in  this  matter— is  peremptory  refusal  to  inves- 
tigate. If  he  gives  himself  up  to  investigations,  he 
comes  inevitably  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  spirits  all  round 
us,  and  of  the  possibility  of  their  interference  in  the 
ordinary  affairs  of  life.  It  is  true  that  after  he  has 
come  to  this  conclusion  he  may  not  be  able  to  demon- 
strate it  to  others.  His  conviction  of  it,  however,  will 
be  none  the  less  absolute  because  of  this.  His  adhesion 
to  the  new  belief  may  seem  to  many  people  absurd. 
He  will  accept  this  view  of  his  state  of  mind  quite 
calmly,  and  apparently  enjoy  the  compensation  of 
finding  the  absurdity  to  be  in  the  other  point  of  view. 
It  matters  not  how  distinguished  a  scientist  he  may  be, 
he  comes  out  of  investigation  of  spiritual  phenomena 
persuaded  of  the  existence  of  a  spiritual  world. 

This  persuasion  seems  to  come  by  some  form  of  in- 
tuition not  quite  dependent  on  the  ordinary  processes 
of  intelligence.  It  is  as  if  spirit  called  to  spirit  across 
the  abyss,  from  the  immaterial  to  the  material,  as  if 
somehow  we  obtained  a  conviction  of  the  existence  of 
spirits  around  us  by  the  very  sympathy  of  our  natures 
and  their  relationship  to  the  immaterial  world,  rather 
than  by  the  ordinary  avenues  of  intelligence.  It  is,  in 
a  word,  a  telepathy,  the  other  agent  in  which  is  not 
material,  but  quite  independent  of  matter,  yet  somehow 
is  able  to  set  up  those  vibrations  in  the  ether  which 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  385 

affect  brain  cells,  and  thus  bring  about  communications, 
as  Sir  William  Crookes  explains  the  curious  phenomena 
in  this  line  that  occur  between  human  beings.  Such 
an  explanation  may  easily  be  dismissed  as  highly  imag- 
inative and  altogether  theoretic.  As  a  student  of  psy- 
chology now  for  many  years,  it  has  appealed  to  me, 
however,  as  the  only  possible  hypothesis  that  gives  any 
plausible  explanation  of  the  curious  conversions  which 
so  inevitably  result  from  sympathetic  attempts  at  inves- 
tigation of  the  possibility  of  spirit  interference  in  mun- 
dane affairs. 

How  far  this  persuasion  of  spiritual  interference  in 
ordinary  human  affairs  has  gone,  will  not  be  realized 
except  by  those  who  are  familiar  with  some  of  the 
literature  which  has  been  made  in  the  last  twenty  years 
on  the  subject  of  psychical  research.  Not  long  since,  a 
distinguished  European  professor  of  physical  science 
went  so  far  as  to  warn  people  of  the  dangers  there 
might  be  in  dismissing  the  opinion  that  other  intelli- 
gences than  those  of  men  could  interfere  for  the  abro- 
gation of  certain  natural  laws.  This  may  be  scoffed  at 
as  the  height  of  credulity,  and  may  be  received  in 
sceptical  mood  by  those  who  refuse  to  look  into  such 
matters,  because  they  know  a  priori  that  they  cannot 
be  true!  It  is  hard,  however,  to  differentiate  the  atti- 
tude of  mind  of  such  persons  from  that  which  Galileo 
deprecated  so  much,  in  that  letter  of  complaint  to 
Kepler,  in  which  he  said  so  bitterly  that  they  refused 
to  look  through  his  telescope  and  demolished,  as  they 
thought,  his  observations  by  logical  conclusions  from 
what  they  knew  already.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  it 
was  not  ecclesiastics  of  whom  he  was  talking-  at  this 
time,  but  professors  of  science  at  the  University  of 


386  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

Pisa,  who  were  quite  as  unsympathetic  towards  certain 
of  his  astronomical  discoveries  as  were  any  of  the  ec- 
clesiastics of  his  time. 

Alfred  Russell  Wallace  has  summed  up  this  matter  in 
a  well-known  chapter  on  psychic  research,  which  he 
places  among  what  he  calls  the  failures  of  A  Wonder- 
ful Century— the  nineteenth.  While  personally  viewing 
this  matter  from  a  very  different  standpoint  to  that 
from  which  it  is  viewed  by  Mr.  Wallace,  I  cannot  help 
but  think  that  the  position  he  occupies  is  much  nearer 
the  truth  than  the  absolute  refusal  to  credit  stories  of 
supra-natural  or  ultra-natural,  if  not  supernatural  inter- 
ferences in  human  affairs.  When  Mr.  Wallace  has  an 
opinion  he  is  likely  to  express  it  very  forcibly,  and  he 
has  done  so  in  this  case.  He  does  not  hesitate  to 
attribute  a  great  many  marvelous  happenings  to  practi- 
cally the  same  forces  as  the  medieval  people  formulated 
for  them,  though  they  would  disagree  utterly  in  the 
purposes  attributed  to  these  events.  Mr.  Wallace  says  : 

"The  still  more  extraordinary  phenomena— veridical 
hallucinations,  warnings,  detailed  predictions  of  future 
events,  phantoms,  voices  or  knockings,  visible  or  audi- 
ble to  numerous  individuals,  bell-ringing,  the  playing 
on  musical  instruments,  stone-throwing  and  various 
movements  of  solid  bodies,  all  without  human  contact 
or  any  discoverable  physical  cause,  still  occur  among  us 
as  they  have  occurred  in  all  ages.  These  are  now  being 
investigated,  and  slowly  but  surely  are  proved  to  be 
realities,  although  the  majority  of  scientific  men  and  of 
writers  for  the  press  still  ignore  the  cumulative  evidence 
and  ridicule  the  inquirers.  These  phenomena  being 
comparatively  rare,  are  as  yet  known  to  but  a  limited 
number  of  persons  ;  but  the  evidence  for  their  reality  is 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  387 

also  very  extensive,  and  it  is  absolutely  certain  that 
during  the  coming  century  they  too  will  be  accepted  as 
realities  by  all  impartial  students  and  by  the  majority 
of  educated  men  and  women. " 

Mr.  Wallace  has  insisted  further  on  the  utterly  unsci- 
entific position  of  many  of  those  who  refuse  to  look  into 
the  evidence  for  these  phenomena,  so  plainly  beyond 
the  power  of  the  ordinary  forces  of  nature  as  we  know 
them,  or  of  the  human  intelligences  in  the  body,  that 
are  immediately  around  us.  He  deprecates,  as  does 
Galileo,  the  method  by  which  this  subject  has  been  kept 
from  receiving  its  due  meed  of  attention.  He  points 
out  that  it  is  because  of  intellectual  intolerance  that  this 
subject  has  been  relegated  to  the  background  of  scien- 
tific attention.  He  even  contends  that  a  great  lesson 
is  to  be  learned  from  this  neglect,  and  one  which  will 
help  men  to  free  themselves  from  that  burden  of  over- 
conservatism  which,  much  more  than  religion  or  the- 
ology, has  impeded  the  progress  of  knowledge  and  the 
advance  of  science.  He  says : 

"The  great  lesson  to  be  learnt  from  our  review  of 
this  subject  is,  distrust  of  all  a  priori  judgments  as  to 
facts ;  for  the  whole  history  of  the  progress  of  human 
knowledge,  and  especially  of  that  department  of  knowl- 
edge now  known  as  psychical  research,  renders  it 
certain  that  whenever  the  scientific  men  or  popular 
teachers  of  any  age  have  denied,  on  a  priori  grounds  of 
impossibility  or  opposition  to  the  'laws  of  nature/  the 
facts  observed  and  recorded  by  numerous  investigators 
of  average  honesty  and  intelligence,  these  deniers  have 
always  been  wrong. " 

"  Future  ages  will,  I  believe,  be  astonished  at  the  vast 
amount  of  energy  and  ignorance  displayed  by  so  many 


388  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

of  the  great  men  of  this  century  in  opposing  unpalatable 
truths,  and  in  supposing  that  a  priori  arguments,  ac- 
cusations of  imposture  or  insanity,  or  personal  abuse, 
were  the  proper  means  of  determining  matters  of  fact 
and  of  observation  in  any  department  of  human  knowl- 
edge." 

If  these  hard-headed  scientists,  whose  training  has 
been  obtained  in  what  physical  scientists  themselves,  at 
least,  are  fain  to  call  the  rigid  school  of  the  logic  of  facts, 
and  under  the  severe  mental  discipline  of  the  inductive 
method,  accept  on  the  evidence  afforded  them,  the 
manifestations  of  the  spiritual  world  and  its  influences 
in  this  as  true,  surely  we  will  not  condemn  these  men 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  who  approached  the  subject  in  such 
a  different  temper,  if  they  came  to  the  same  conclusion. 
We  recognize  that  the  modern  scientist,  with  his  trained 
powers  of  observation  and  his  elaborate  facilities  for 
eliminating  the  adventitious  in  his  experiments,  is  in  a 
position  to  judge  impartially  with  regard  to  such  sub- 
jects. More  than  this,  his  life  has  usually  been  spent 
in  making  such  syntheses  of  evidence  for  and  against 
the  significance  of  facts,  as  should  enable  him  to  be  a 
proper  judge.  If,  then,  whenever  he  seriously  devotes 
himself  to  such  an  investigation,  he  comes  almost  in- 
evitably to  the  conclusion  that  spirits  do  intervene  in 
our  affairs,  yet  we  refuse  to  believe  with  him,  it  is  hard 
to  know  on  what  principle  we  shall  accept  his  scientific 
conclusions.  If  we  cannot  bring  ourselves  to  think  his 
conclusions  are  of  equal  value  in  both  cases,  we  place 
ourselves  in  a  strange  dilemma.  The  medieval  scholars 
were  prone,  because  of  the  faith  to  which  they  had 
given  their  whole-hearted  adhesion,  to  see  spiritual 
powers  at  work  in  many  things.  In  this  they  were 


CHURCH  AND  MENTALLY  AFFLICTED  389 

sometimes  sadly  mistaken,  but  not  so  much  mistaken 
as  certain  generations  of  the  nineteenth  century,  who 
absolutely  refused  to  accept  any  possibility  of  spiritual 
interference  in  things  mundane.  Both  the  extremes 
are  mistakes.  It  is  manifestly  more  of  a  mistake,  how- 
ever, to  deny  spiritual  influence  entirely  (I  talk  now 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  scientist  and  not  the  be- 
liever) ,  than  to  accept  so  much  of  spiritual  interference 
as  the  medieval  generations  permitted  themselves  to  be 
convinced  of. 

This  whole  subject  is  one  that  cannot  be  dismissed 
as  the  conclusion  of  a  bit  of  vapid  superficial  argumen- 
tation. It  is  one  of  the  great  mysteries  of  life  and  of  the 
significance  of  man  in  the  world.  The  medieval  peoples 
did  much  harm  by  accepting  the  position,  that  many 
persons  suffering  from  ordinary  nervous  and  mental 
diseases  as  we  now  know  them  were  really  possessed  by 
the  devil.  The  treatment  accorded  these  supposedly 
possessed  (for  the  moment  we  lay  aside  the  question  as 
to  the  possibility  of  the  reality  of  diabolic  possession)  was 
not  any  worse  than  has  frequently  been  accorded  to 
sufferers  from  mental  and  nervous  disease  in  presum- 
ably much  more  intelligent  times,  either  because  of  fear 
of  them,  or  neglect  on  account  of  the  absence  of  a 
sufficient  number  of  keepers,  or  because  of  curious 
theories  of  medical  science.  Mankind,  it  is  hoped,  is 
progressing,  but  the  amount  of  progress  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  is  not  enough,  that  any  succeeding 
age  should  criticise  severely  the  well-intentioned  though 
mistaken  efforts  of  their  predecessors  to  meet,  accord- 
ing to  the  best  of  their  ability,  problems  that  are  as 
deep  as  those  involved  in  nervous  and  mental  diseases. 


390  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 


APPENDIX. 


"The  truth  seeker  has  had  to  struggle  for  his  physi- 
cal life.  Each  acquisition  of  truth  has  been  resisted  by 
the  full  force  of  the  inertia  of  satisfaction  with  precon- 
ceived ideas.  Just  as  a  new  thought  comes  to  us  with 
a  shock  which  rouses  the  resistance  of  our  personal  con- 
servatism, so  a  new  idea  is  met  and  repelled  by  the 
conservatism  of  society."  (Jordan,  The  Struggle  for 
Realities,  in  Footsteps  of  Evolution.) 


I. 
OPPOSITION  TO  SCIENTIFIC  PROGRESS. 

The  main  purpose  of  this  book  has  not  been  accom- 
plished unless  it  has  been  shown  that  the  Church,  the 
Popes,  and  ecclesiastics  generally  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  especially  during  the  three  centuries  before 
the  reformation  so-called,  far  from  opposing  scientific 
advance  or  investigation,  were  constantly  in  the  posi- 
tion of  encouraging  and  fostering  science,  even  if  the 
meaning  of  that  term  be  limited,  as  it  has  come  to  be  in 
modern  times,  to  the  physical  or  natural  sciences.  The 
Popes  and  the  great  ecclesiastics  were  patrons  of  learn- 
ing of  every  kind,  and  that  they  not  only  encouraged, 
but  aided  very  materially  the  institutions  of  learning  in 
which  the  problems  of  science  with  which  we  are  now 
engaged,  were  discussed  in  very  much  the  same  way  as 
we  discuss  them  at  the  present  time,  is  evident  from 
the  story  of  the  foundation  of  the  universities.  It  will 
be  a  source  of  wonder  to  many  people  how,  with  all  this 
as  a  matter  of  simple  educational  history,  the  traditions 
with  regard  to  the  supposed  opposition  of  the  Church 
and  the  Popes  to  science  have  grown  up.  This  is  not 
so  difficult  to  understand,  however,  as  might  be  thought, 


APPENDIX  391 

and  a  few  words  of  explanation  will  serve  to  show  that 
there  was  opposition  to  science,  but  that  this  was  not 
due  to  religious  intolerance  in  any  proper  sense  of  the 
term.  • 

Those  who  give  the  religious  element  a  prominent 
place  in  this,  forget  how  much  natural  opposition  to  the 
introduction  of  new  ideas  there  is  in  men's  minds, 
quite  apart  from  their  religious  convictions.  Nearly  two 
centuries  ago  Dean  Swift  said,  in  his  own  bitter  frame 
of  mind  of  course,  but  still  with  an  approach  to  truth 
that  has  made  the  expression  one  of  the  oft-quoted  pas- 
sages from  his  works  :  ' '  When  a  true  genius  appears  in 
the  world,  you  may  know  him  by  this  sign— that  all  the 
asses  are  in  confederacy  against  him." 

I  suppose  the  Dean  himself  would  have  been  the  first  to 
insist  that  some  of  his  colleagues  in  the  ministry  emi- 
nently deserved  the  opprobrious  substantive  epithet  he 
employed.  It  would  be  too  much  to  expect  that  there 
should  not  be  as  many  foolish  ones  among  the  clergy  of 
the  olden  times  as  in  any  other  of  the  professions.  Oc- 
casionally one  of  these  foolish  clergymen  rose  up  in 
opposition  to  science.  Whenever  he  did,  especially  if  he 
belonged  to  the  class  mentioned  by  Dean  Swift,  then  he 
surely  made  his  religion  the  principal  reason  for  his  op- 
position. That  gave  an  added  prestige  in  his  mind  and 
in  the  minds  of  those  who  accepted  his  teachings,  to 
whatever  he  had  to  say  on  the  subject.  This  no  more 
involved  the  Church  itself,  nor  ecclesiastics  generally,  in 
the  condemnation  of  the  particular  scientific  doctrine, 
than  does  the  frequent  opposition  of  peculiar  members 
of  medical  societies  to  real  progress  in  medicine,  involve 
the  organization  to  which  they  belong  in  the  old-f  ogyism 
which  would  prevent  advance. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  small  minds  are  always 
prone  to  find  very  respectable  reasons  for  their  opposi- 
tion to  something  that  has  been  hitherto  unknown  to 
them.  While  novelty  is  supposed  to  attract,  and  does 
when  it  comes  in  a  form  not  too  unfamiliar,  and  when 
men  are  not  asked  to  give  up  old  convictions  for  its  sake, 
real  newness  always  evokes  opposition.  Washington 
Allston  once  said  very  well  with  regard  to  ^  this,  that 
' '  An  original  mind  is  rarely  understood  until  it  has  been 
reflected  from  some  half-dozen  congenial  with  it,  so 


392  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

averse  are  men  to  admitting  the  true  in  an  unusual 
form ;  whilst  any  novelty,  however  fantastic,  however 
false,  is  greedily  swallowed/'  This  principle  will  be  of 
great  service  in  making  clear  the  real  significance  of 
many  incidents  in  the  history  of  science,  in  which  not 
only  intelligent  men  without  special  scientific  training 
have  been  found  in  opposition  to  real  scientific  progress, 
but  in  which  men  having  had  the  advantage  of  long  ex- 
perience in  scientific  investigation,  having  themselves 
sometimes  as  younger  men  done  original  work  of  value, 
have  yet  placed  themselves  squarely  in  opposition  to  sci- 
entific advance  that  eventually  proved  of  the  highest 
possible  significance. 

Scientific  men  have,  as  a  rule,  been  quite  ready  at  all 
times  to  argue  that  an  announced  new  discovery  could 
not  be  true,  that  indeed  it  was  absurd  to  think  of  it. 
The  word  nonsense  is  perhaps  oftener  on  scientists' 
tongues  than  on  any  others'.  It  is  not  because  he  is 
deliberately  opposed  to  scientific  progress  that  this  is  the 
case  with  the  scientist,  but  that  he  is  so  convinced  of 
the  ultimate  significance  of  many  things  that  he  knows 
already,  that  he  cannot  readily  bring  himself  to  admit 
the  idea  of  progress  along  lines  with  which  he  is  familiar. 
To  do  so,  indeed,  supposes  that  he  himself  has  been 
lacking  in  perspicacity  and  in  powers  of  observation. 
The  fact  that  it  is  usually  a  young  man  who  makes  the 
new  observation,  not  infrequently  a  young  man  who 
does  not  know  the  great  body  of  science  that  the  older 
acknowledged  scientist  does,  only  adds  to  the  readiness 
with  which  the  senior  is  apt  to  consider  the  new  proposi- 
tion as  absurd.  Ecclesiastics  have  done  this  same  thing, 
but  not  nearly  so  frequently  as  scientists.  There  was  a 
time  when  the  majority  of  educated  men  belonged  to  the 
clerical  order,  and  then  it  seemed  as  though  it  must  be 
religion  that  prompted  some  of  the  conservatism  which 
led  them  to  oppose  what  proved  eventually  to  be  new 
truths.  It  was  not,  however,  but  only  human  nature 
asserting  itself  in  spite  of  education. 

Prof.  David  Starr  Jordan  in  reviewing  briefly  the  his- 
tory of  .the  Struggle  for  Realities  in  one  of  the  essays  in 
his  Foot-notes  to  Evolution,1  has  summed  up  the  genuine 

1  N.  Y.,  Appleton,  1902. 


APPENDIX  393 

significance  of  this  supposed  opposition  of  science  and 
theology  in  some  striking  paragraphs.  To  my  mind,  he 
places  the  whole  subject  on  its  proper  foundation,  and 
properly  disposes  of  the  supposed  conflict  between  religion 
or  theology  and  science.  He  says  :— 

"But  as  I  have  said  before,  the  real  essence  of  con- 
servatism lies  not  in  theology.  The  whole  conflict  is  a 
struggle  in  the  mind  of  man.  It  exists  in  human  psy- 
chology before  it  is  wrought  out  in  human  history.  It  is 
the  struggle  of  realities  against  tradition  and  suggestion. 
The  progress  of  civilization  would  still  have  been  just 
such  a  struggle  had  religion  or  theology  or  churches  or 
worship  never  existed.  But  such  a  conception  is  im- 
possible, because  the  need  for  all  these  is  part  of  the 
actual  development  of  man. 

Intolerance  and  prejudice  is,  moreover,  not  confined  to 
religious  organizations.  The  same  spirit  that  burned 
Michael  Servetus  and  Giordano  Bruno  for  the  heresies  of 
science,  led  the  atheist  ' '  liberal '  '  mob  of  Paris  to  send 
to  the  scaffold  the  great  chemist  Lavoisier,  with  the 
sneer  that  "the  republic  has  no  need  of  savants."  The 
same  spirit  that  leads  the  orthodox  Gladstone  to  reject 
natural  selection  because  it  "relieves  God  of  the  labor 
of  creation,"  causes  the  heterodox  Hseckel  to  condemn 
Weismann's  theories  of  heredity,  not  because  they  are 
at  variance  with  facts,  but  because  such  questions  are 
settled  once  for  all  by  the  great  philosophic  dictum  (his 
own)  ' '  of  monism. ' ' 

This  very  natural  ultra-conservative  mood  of  scientists 
is  well  illustrated  by  a  passage  from  Galileo's  life,  in 
which  he  himself  describes  in  a  letter  to  Kepler,  the 
great  mathematician  and  astronomer  of  his  time,  the  re- 
ception that  his  new  invention,  the  telescope,  met  with 
from  distinguished  men  of  science,  their  colleagues  of 
the  moment.  The  Italian  astronomer  encountered  the 
well-known  tendency  of  men  to  reason  from  what  they 
already  know,  that  certain  advances  in  knowledge  are 
impossible  or  absurd.  The  favorite  expression  is  that 
the  thoughts  suggested  by  some  new  discovery  are  il- 
logical. Men  have  always  reasoned  thus,  and  apparently 
they  always  will.  Knowledge  that  they  learn  before 
they  are  forty  constitutes,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
for  them  the  possible  sum  of  human  knowledge,  and 


394  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

they  can  only  think  that  apparent  progress  that  contra- 
dicts their  previous  convictions  must  be  founded  on  false 
premises  or  faulty  observation.  We  cannot  help  sym- 
pathizing with  Galileo,  though  it  must  be  a  consolation 
for  others  who  are  struggling  to  have  ideas  of  theirs 
adopted,  to  read  the  words  addressed  to  his  great  con- 
temporary and  sympathetic  fellow  worker  by  the  Italian 
astronomer. 

"What  wilt  thou  say,"  he  writes,  "of  the  first 
teachers  at  the  University  at  Padua,  who  when  I  offered 
to  them  the  opportunity,  would  look  neither  at  the  planets 
nor  the  moon  through  the  telescope  ?  This  sort  of  men 
look  on  philosophy  as  a  book  like  the  ^Eneid  or  Odyssey, 
and  believe  the  truth  is  to  be  sought  not  in  the  world  of 
nature,  but  only  in  comparison  of  texts.  How  wouldst 
thou  have  laughed,  when  at  Pisa  the  leading  Professor 
of  the  University  there  endeavored,  in  the  presence  of 
the  Grand  Duke,  to  tear  away  the  new  planets  from 
Heaven  with  logical  arguments,  like  magical  exor- 
cisms !" 

This  gives  the  key  to  the  real  explanation  of  the 
Galileo  incident  better  than  would  a  whole  volume 
of  explanation  of  it.  It  is  now  realized  that  very 
few  of  those  who  have  been  most  ready  to  quote 
the  example  of  Galileo's  condemnation  as  an  argument 
for  Church  intolerance  in  the  matter  of  science,  know 
anything  at  all  about  the  details  of  his  case.  The  bitter 
intolerance  of  many  men  of  science  of  his  time,  including 
even  that  supposed  apostle  of  the  experimental  method 
—Bacon— to  the  Copernican  system,  is  an  important  but 
ignored  phase  of  the  case  of  Galileo,  as  it  came  before 
the  Roman  inquisition.  The  peculiar  position  occupied  by 
Galileo  caused  Prof.  Huxley,  writing  to  Prof.  St.  George 
Mivart,  November  12th,  1885,  to  say  that,  after  looking 
into  the  case  of  Galileo  when  he  was  in  Italy,  he  had 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  ' '  that  the  Pope  and  the  Col- 
lege of  Cardinals  had  rather  the  best  of  it."  In  our 
own  time,  M.  Bertrand,  the  Perpetual  Secretary  of  the 
French  Academy  of  Sciences,  declared  that  "the  great 
lesson  for  those  who  would  wish  to  oppose  reason  with 
violence  was  clearly  to  be  read  in  Galileo's  story,  and 
the  scandal  of  his  condemnation  was  learned  without  any 
profound  sorrow  to  Galileo  himself;  and  his  long  life, 


APPENDIX  395 

considered  as  a  whole,  must  be  looked  upon  as  the  most 
serene  and  enviable  in  the  history  of  science. ' ' 

Certain  historical  incidents  in  which  Church  author- 
ities and  ecclesiastics  assumed  an  attitude  distinctly 
opposed  to  true  scientific  advance  can  be  found.  They 
are,  however,  ever  so  much  rarer  than  is  thought.  Let 
those  who  accept  unquestioningly  the  supposed  opposi- 
tion of  Church  to  science,  count  over  for  themselves  the 
definite  cases  of  this  in  history  which  they  know  for 
certain,  and  they  will  be  surprised,  as  a  rule,  on  what 
slight  grounds  their  persuasion  in  this  matter  is  founded. 
We  have  detailed  the  policy  of  the  Church  with  regard 
to  education  and  science.  Such  incidents  of  opposition 
as  can  be  gathered  were  breaks  away  from  that  policy. 
They  were  not  due  so  much  to  faith  or  theology,  though 
these  were  often  made  excuses  for  them,  as  to  the  nat- 
ural opposition  to  novelty,  so  common  in  man. 

With  regard  to  this  matter,  as  with  regard  to  opposi- 
tion in  general  to  science,  President  Jordan  has  once 
more  set  forth  the  realities  of  the  situation  so  as  to 
make  it  clear  that,  ^even  when  it  was  the  dogmatic 
spirit  that  was  behind  the  refusal  to  accept  certain 
scientific  truths,  not  only  was  there  the  best  of  inten- 
tions in  this  in  all  cases,  but  in  nearly  all,  the  results 
were  such  as  to  benefit  mankind,  and  even  to  help 
rather  than  hinder  science.  He  says  : 

The  desire  of  dogmatism  to  control  action  is  in  its 
essence  the  desire  to  save  men  from  their  own  folly. 
The  great  historic  churches  have  existed  '  for  the  benefit 
of  the  weak  and  the  poor. '  By  their  observances  they 
have  stimulated  the  spirit  of  devotion.  By  their  com- 
mands they  have  protected  men  from  unwise  action. 
By  their  condemnations  they  have  saved  men  from  the 
grasp  of  vice  and  crime. " 

The  ultra-conservatism  which  is  the  real  factor  at 
fault  in  these  cases  exists  in  all  men  beyond  middle  life. 
It  is  a  wise  provision  of  nature  very  probably  to  prevent 
the  young  and  headstrong  from  running  away  with  the 
race.  We  would  be  plunged  into  all  sorts  of  curious 
experimental  conditions  only  for  the  fact  that  those 
beyond  middle  life  act  as  a  brake  on  the  initiative  of 
their  juniors.  While  it  does  some  harm,  there  is  no 
doubt  of  its  supremely  beneficial  effects  in  the  long  run. 


396  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

For  one  announced  great  discovery  that  proves  its  actual 
right  to  the  title,  there  are  at  least  a  hundred  that  are 
proclaimed  with  loud  blare  of  trumpet,  yet  prove 
nonentities.  This  sometimes  becomes  a  very  trouble- 
some brake  on  progress,  however.  Some  three  hundred 
years  ago,  Harvey  said  with  regard  to  his  epoch-making 
discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  that  he  did  not 
expect  any  of  his  contemporaries  who  was  over  forty 
years  of  age  to  accept  it.  His  premonition  in  this 
matter  was  fully  confirmed  by  the  event.  Darwin,  I 
believe,  once  remarked  that  he  did  not  think  that  men 
of  his  own  age  in  his  own  generation  would  accept  his 
theory,  and  most  of  them  did  not. 

The  opposition  which,  as  a  consequence  of  this  natural 
conservatism,  is  so  constantly  ready  to  manifest  itself, 
is  as  human  as  the  envy  which,  much  as  we  may  bewail 
the  fact,  accompanies  all  individual  success.  A  history 
of  this  phase  of  scientific  progress  is  of  itself  very 
interesting  and  of  great  psychological  importance.  A 
short  sketch  of  it  will  serve  the  purpose  of  placing 
the  opposition  of  churchmen  to  science  in  the  category 
where  it  belongs,  and  will  make  this  subject  appear  in 
its  true  light  of  a  very  natural  and  universal  psychic 
manifestation,  not  a  religious  or  supposed  theological 
phenomenon. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  show 
that  there  are  many  more  incidents  of  opposition  to  the 
progress  of  science  on  the  part  of  scientists  because  of 
their  conservatism,  than  on  the  part  of  ecclesiastics 
because  of  religion  or  theology.  There  has  scarcely 
ever  been  a  really  important  advance  made  in  science, 
a  really  new  discovery  announced,  which  has  not  met 
with  such  bitter  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  men  who 
were  most  prominent  in  the  science  concerned  at  the 
time,  as  to  make  things  very  uncomfortable  for  the 
discoverer,  and  on  many  occasions  this  opposition  has 
taken  on  the  character  of  real  persecution.  It  will  be 
at  once  said  that  this  is  very  different  from  the  formal 
condemnation  by  organized  bodies  of  truths  in  science, 
with  all  that  this  implies  of  ostracization  and  of  dis- 
couragement on  the  part  of  scientific  workers.  The 
history  of  science  is  full  of  stories  showing  that  formal 
scientific  bodies  refused  to  consider  seriously  what  were 


APPENDIX  397 

really  great  discoveries,  or  that  scientific  editors  not 
only  rejected  papers  representing  valuable  original 
research,  but  even  did  not  hesitate  to  discredit  their 
authors  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  extremely  difficult 
for  them  to  pursue  their  studies  in  science  successfully, 
and  still  more  to  prevent  them  from  securing  such 
positions  as  would  enable  them  to  carry  on  their  scien- 
tific investigations  under  favorable  circumstances.  In 
a  word,  persecution  was  carried  out  just  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, and  the  result  was  quite  as  much  discouragement 
as  if  the  opposition  were  more  formal.  It  is  not  hard 
to  show,  on  the  other  hand,  that  while  formal  opposi- 
tion by  Church  authorities  was  very  rare,  rejection 
by  medical  and  scientific  societies  and  by  the  scientific 
authorities  for  the  moment  of  new  discoveries  was  so 
common,  as  to  be  almost  the  rule  in  the  history  of 
progress  in  science. 

This  is  so  different  from  what  is  ordinarily  supposed 
to  be  the  calm  course  of  scientific  evolution,  that  it  will 
need  a  series  of  illustrative  cases  to  support  it.  In 
recent  years,  however,  the  cultivation  of  the  history  of 
science  has  been  more  ardent  than  in  the  past,  and  ^  the 
result  has  been  that  many  more  know  of  this  curious 
anomaly  and  paradox  in  scientific  history  than  was  the 
case  a  few  years  ago,  and  it  is  comparatively  easy  to 
obtain  the  material  to  demonstrate  it.  One  of  the  most 
striking  instances  is  that  of  Harvey. 

Harvey  discovered  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  at  a 
time  and  under  circumstances  that  would  surely  lead  us 
to  expect  its  immediate  acceptance  and  the  hailing  of 
him  as  a  great  original  thinker  in  science.  He  first  ex- 
pounded it  to  his  class,  very  probably  in  1616,  which 
will  be  remembered  as  the  year  of  Shakespeare's  death. 
The  glory  of  the  great  Elizabethan  era  in  England  was 
not  yet  passed.  Men's  minds  had  been  opened  to  great 
advances  in  every  department  of  thought  during  the 
preceding  century,  by  the  Renaissance  movement  and 
the  New  Learning  in  England.  Probably  no  greater 
group  of  original  thinkers  has  ever  existed  than  were 
alive  in  England  during  the  preceding  twenty-five  years. 
Four  years  after  Harvey  had  sufficiently  elaborated  his 
ideas  on  the  circulation  to  present  them  to  his  class, 
and  the  very  year  after  he  wrote  his  treatise  on  the 


398  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

subject,  though  he  dared  not  publish  it  as  yet,  Lord 
Bacon  published  his  Novum  Organum,  in  which  he  ad- 
vocated the  use  in  science  of  the  very  principles  of 
induction  on  which  Harvey's  great  discovery  was 
founded. 

What  happened  is  interesting  for  our  purpose.  Har- 
vey was  so  well  acquainted  with  the  intolerant  temper 
of  men  as  regards  new  discoveries,  that  he  hesitated  to 
publish  his  book  on  the  subject  until  men  had  been 
prepared  for  it,  by  his  ideas  gradually  filtering  out 
among  the  medical  profession  through  the  members  of 
his  class.  He  waited  nearly  fifteen  years  after  his  first 
formal  lesson  on  the  subject,  before  he  dared  to  commit 
it  to  print.  Shakespeare  had  made  Brutus  say  to  Portia: 

"  You  are  my  true  and  honorable  wife, 
As  dear  to  me  as  are  the  ruddy  drops 
That  visit  my  sad  heart ;" 

but  men  were  not  yet  ready  to  accept  the  great  princi- 
ple of  the  blood  movement.  There  seems  to  be  good 
authority  for  saying  that  Harvey  had  more  than  suspected 
his  great  truth  for  twenty-five  years  before  he  dared 
print  it.  He  realized  that  it  would  surely  meet  with 
opposition  and  would  make  serious  unpleasantness  be- 
tween him  and  his  friends.  He  was  not  deceived  in 
anticipation.  Many  of  his  friends  fell  away  from  him, 
and  according  to  tradition,  he  lost  more  than  half  of  his 
consulting  practice,  because  physicians  could  not  and 
would  not  believe  that  a  man  who  evolved  such  a 
strange  idea  as  the  constant  movement  of  the  blood  all 
over  the  body,  from  heart  to  surface  and  back,  could 
possibly  be  in  his  right  mind,  and,  above  all,  be  a  suit- 
able person  to  consult  with  in  difficult  cases. 

Harvey's  case  is  a  lively  picture  of  what  happened  to 
Vesalius  the  century  before  in  Italy,  which  we  have 
already  discussed  at  length  in  the  chapter  on  the  Golden 
Age  of  Anatomy.  President  White  insists ^  that  this 
persecution  was  due  to  ecclesiastical  opposition  to  dis- 
section, but  of  this  there  is  not  a  trace  to  be  found. 
Dissection  was  carried  on  with  perfect  freedom  at  all 
of  the  Italian  universities,  though  they  were  all  under 
ecclesiastical  influence,  and  in  none  was  there  more 
freedom  than  in  the  Papal  University  of  Rome,  at  the 


APPENDIX  399 

very  time  when  Vesalius  was  doing  his  work  in  Northern 
Italy.  At  this  time,  too,  Bologna  was  famous  for  its 
work  in  anatomy.  Berengar  of  Carpi  did  a  very  large 
number  of  dissections,  though  Bologna  was  at  the  mo- 
ment a  Papal  city  and  the  University  was  directly  under 
the  Popes. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  opposition  to  Vesalius  arose 
entirely  from  the  conservatism  of  fellow  scientists  in 
medicine,  who  thought  that  what  had  been  taught  for 
many  hundreds  of  years  in  the  universities,  and  had 
been  accepted  by  men  quite  as  good  as  Vesalius  or  any 
of  their  generation  for  over  a  thousand  years,  must 
surely  be  nearer  absolute  truth  than  what  this  young  in- 
vestigator wished  them  to  accept.  It  is  scarcely  to  be 
wondered  that  they  resented,  as  men  always  do,  what 
must  have  seemed  the  intrusive  rashness  of  this  young 
medical  student,  who  was  not  yet  thirty  when  he  began 
to  claim  the  right  to  teach  his  teachers,  and  who  wanted 
to  tell  them  that  the  medical  world  had  all  been  wrong 
not  only  for  many  years,  but  for  many  centuries,  and 
that  he  had  been  born  to  set  them  right.  This  is,  after 
all,  the  attitude  of  mind  which  naturally  develops  in 
these  cases,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  old  men  use 
whatever  means  they  have  in  their  power  to  prevent 
rash  young  men  from  leading,  as  they  think,  the  world 
astray. 

The  cases  of  Harvey  and  Vesalius  are  by  no  means  ex- 
ceptional, nor  was  the  opposition  limited  to  England  and 
Italy,  but  examples  of  it  may  be  found  in  every  country 
in  Europe.  Nor  was  it  only  with  regard  to  anatomy  and 
anatomical  discoveries  and  problems  that  such  opposition 
manifested  itself.  In  this  matter  the  story  of  Seryetus 
is  very  interesting.  He  made  some  new  discoveries  in 
anatomy,  but  these  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  bitter  op- 
position which  some  of  his  ideas  encountered  in  Paris, 
quite  apart  from  any  question  of  theology  or  religion. 
We  do  not  know  just  when  he  discovered  the  circulation 
in  the  lungs,  which  he  described  so  clearly  in  the  volume 
on  the  renewal  of  Christianity,  for  which  he  was  burned 
at  Geneva  by  Calvin.  While  at  the  University  of  Paris,  he 
had  been  mainly  occupied  with  the  department  of  thera- 
peutics rather  than  of  anatomy  or  physiology.  He  had 
suggested  especially  certain  changes  in  the  mode  of 


400  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

giving  drugs.  He  had  much  to  do  with  the  general  in- 
troduction of  syrups  to  replace  more  nauseating  prepara- 
tions of  medicine.  He  was  probably  the  first  one  to 
realize  that  elegant  prescribing,  that  is,  the  choice  of 
drugs  and  their  combination  in  such  a  way  as  to  make 
them  less  unpleasant  to  the  patient,  was  a  consummation 
eminently  to  be  desired  in  medical  practice.  His  ideas 
on  this  subject  met,  as  novelties  always  do,  no  matter 
how  good  in  themselves,  with  the  most  rancorous  opposi- 
tion. Factions  were  formed  in  the  University.  There 
were  riots  in  the  streets.  Students  were  wounded  in  the 
fights  which  took  place.  Some  even  were  killed  ap- 
parently. All  this  over  the  question  whether  medicine 
as  given  to  patients  should  be  pleasant  or  unpleasant. 

As  we  have  had  examples  from  England,  France  and 
Italy,  we  may  quote  one  from  the  Netherlands.  We  do 
so  only  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  everywhere,  no  matter 
what  the  character  of  the  people,  nor  the  religion  which 
they  happened  to  profess,  their  conservatism  set  them  in 
opposition  at  once  to  novelties  in  science.  England  was 
Protestant  in  Harvey's  time,  and  the  Netherlands  mainly 
so  at  the  period  of  which  we  are  about  to  speak. 

When  Stensen,  or  as  he  is  more  familiarly  known  by 
his  Latin  name,  Steno,  discovered  and  announced  the 
fact  that  the  heart  is  a  muscle,  he  was  looked  upon  with 
very  much  the  same  suspicion  as  to  his  sanity  as  Harvey, 
a  half-century  before,  when  the  great  English  physiol- 
ogist proclaimed  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  such 
suspicions  were  rather  openly  expressed  by  those  who 
were  too  conservative  to  accept  this  new  teaching.  The 
heart  had  been  considered,  not  figuratively  as  we  now 
speak,  but  seriously  and  very  literally,  as  the  seat  of  the 
emotions.  Over  and  over  again,  all  men  had  had  the 
experience  that  in  times  of  emotional  stress  the  heart 
was  disturbed.  They  could  feel  their  emotions  welling 
up  from  their  hearts,  therefore  there  was  no  doubt  in 
their  minds  of  the  truth  of  the  old  teaching.  Into  the 
midst  of  this  perfectly  harmonious  concord  of  scientific 
opinion,  without  a  dissenting  voice  anywhere  in  the 
world,  comes  a  young  man  not  yet  twenty-five,  who  al- 
most sacrilegiously  declares  that  the  heart  is  merely  a 
muscle  and  not  a  secreter  of  emotions.  Fortunately  for 
him,  he  was  of  gentler  disposition  than  most  of  the  other 


APPENDIX  401 

men  who  have  had  the  independence  of  mind  to  make 
discoveries,  and  so  no  very  bitter  opposition  was  aroused 
against  him.  He  was  considered  too  harmless  to  be 
taken  very  seriously,  but  at  least  when  the  announce- 
ment first  came,  most  of  those  who  knew  anything 
about  medicine,  or  thought  they  did,  and  this  is  much 
more  serious  in  these  cases,  recognized  that  young  Sten- 
sen  had  somehow  allowed  himself  to  be  led  astray  into  a 
very  foolish  notion,  and  one  that  could  only  emanate 
from  a  mind  not  quite  capable  of  realizing  truth  as  it  was  ; 
and  they  did  not  hesitate  to  say  so. 

After  this  Stensen  found  the  Netherlands  quite  an  un- 
sympathetic place  for  his  studies,  and  so  moved  down  into 
Italy,  where  he  could  find  more  freedom  of  thought  for 
research  and  more  appreciation,  and  continue  his  original 
investigations  with  less  scorn  for  his  new  discoveries. 
Here  he  continued  to  hit  upon  original  ideas  that  were 
likely  to  make  things  quite  uncomfortable  for  him,  not 
because  of  religious  intolerance,  but  because  of  the  more 
or  less  hide-bound  conservatism  that  always  character- 
izes mediocre  minds.  Far  from  coming  into  disrespect 
here,  however,  he  acquired  many  and  very  close  friends. 
He  laid  the  foundation  of  modern  geology  and  wrote  a 
little  book  that  is  a  very  wonderful  anticipation  of  sup- 
posedly nineteenth  century  ideas  in  that  science.  He 
had  come  down  into  Italy  a  Protestant,  having  been 
raised  in  that  religion  in  his  native  Denmark.  He  found 
so  much  of  sympathy  with  every  phase  of  intellectual 
activity  among  the  ecclesiastics  in  Italy,  that  he  not 
only  became  a  convert  to  Catholicity,  but  after  a  time  a 
Catholic  priest.  His  reputation  spread  to  Rome,  and  the 
Pope  not  only  sent  for  and  received  this  innovator  in 
anatomy  and  the  founder  of  geology  very  courteously, 
but  treated  him  with  every  mark  of  appreciation,  and 
this  within  a  half  a  century  after  Galileo's  condemnation. 
Stensen  eventually  went  back  to  Northern  Europe  as  a 
bishop,  in  the  hope  of  being  able  to  convert  to  Catholic- 
ity those  among  the  Teutonic  nations  who  had  been  led 
away  during  the  religious  revolt. 

It  might  be  thought  that  such  examples  of  persecution 
were  of  course  rather  frequent  in  the  distant  centuries, 
and  must  not  be  taken  too  seriously,  since  they  come  in 
times  before  men  had  learned  to  respect  one  another's 


402  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

opinions  and  to  realize  that  the  assertions  of  an  authority 
in  science  are  only  to  be  considered  as  worth  the  reasons 
he  advances  for  them.  Most  people  will  be  quite  ready 
to  congratulate  themselves  on  the  fact  that  our  modern 
time  has  outlived  this  unfortunate  state  of  mind,  which 
served  to  hamper  scientific  investigation.  They  will 
probably  even  be  quite  self-complacent  over  the  sup- 
posed fact  that,  ever  since  the  study  of  natural  science 
was  taken  up  seriously  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  and 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  this  unfortun- 
ate temper  has  disappeared.  Those  who  think  so,  how- 
ever, know  nothing  of  the  history  of  nineteenth  century 
science,  and  especially  not  of  nineteenth  century  medi- 
cine. Jenner's  great  discovery  of  the  value  of  vaccina- 
tion against  small-pox  came  just  before  the  nineteenth 
century  opened.  It  met  with  the  bitterest  kind  of 
opposition.  This  was  especially  the  case  in  England. 
There  is  a  doubt  whether  Germany  did  not  eventually  do 
more  to  bring  about  the  recognition  of  the  immense 
value  of  Jenner's  discovery  than  his  native  England. 
Anyone  who  has  read  Jenner's  life  knows  how  much  he 
was  made  to  suffer  from  the  bitterness  of  opponents' 
expressions  with  regard  to  him.1  It  is  true  that  he  was 
eventually  rewarded  quite  liberally,  and  that  honors  were 
showered  upon  him,  but  only  after  a  preliminary  series 
of  trials  that  must  have  made  him  regret,  if  possible, 
that  he  had  ever  devoted  himself  to  the  propaganda  of  a 
great  truth.  Nor  did  the  dawn  of  the  vaunted  nine- 
teenth century  bring  in  a  better  state  of  affairs  in  this 
regard. 

It  might  perhaps  be  thought  that  this  almost  constant 
tendency  to  oppose  new  developments  in  science 
was  not  recognized  for  what  it  really  is,  the  ultra- 
conservatism  of  human  nature  as  men  grow  older,  until 
comparatively  modern  times.  Anyone  who  knows  some 
of  the  intimate  details  of  the  history  of  medicine  is  sure  to 
be  better  informed  in  this  matter,  and  to  be  well  aware 
that,  like  Harvey,  most  discoverers  in  medicine  antici- 
pated this  opposition.  Usually  they  have  had  no  exper- 
ience of  it  before,  but  they  realize  from  the  way  men 


1  See  my  sketch  of  his  life  in  Makers  of  Modern  Medicine.    Fordham  University 
Press,  N.  Y.,  1907. 


APPENDIX  403 

think  around  them,  and  very  probably  also  from  their 
own  prompt  reaction  of  opposition  to  whatever  is  novel, 
that  men  are  sure  to  be  ready  to  oppose  the  introduction 
of  whatever  is  new.  One  of  the  quietest,  gentlest  and 
most  lovable  characters  among  the  geniuses  in  medicine 
was  Auenbrugger,  who,  in  Vienna,  about  150  years  ago, 
discovered  the  method  of  percussion  of  the  chest,  which 
is  so  helpful  in  the  diagnosis  of  chest  diseases.  He 
perfected  his  discovery  when  he  was  a  young  man  of 
about  25.  He  did  not  publish  it  until  he  was  nearly  40 
years  of  age.  Like  Harvey,  he  waited  nearly  a  score  of 
years  before  giving  it  to  the  world.  The  reason  for  the 
delay  is  given  in  the  preface  in  the  following  words : 

"I  foresee  very  well  that  I  shall  encounter  no  little 
opposition  to  my  views,  and  I  put  my  invention  before 
the  public  with  that  anticipation.  I  realize,  however, 
that  envy  and  blame  and  even  hatred  and  calumny  have 
never  failed  to  come  to  men  who  have  illuminated  art  or 
science  by  their  discoveries  or  have  added  to  their  perfec- 
tion. I  expect  to  have  to  submit  to  this  danger  myself, 
but  I  think  that  no  one  will  be  able  to  call  any  of  my 
observations  to  account.  I  have  written  only  what  I 
have  myself  learned  by  personal  observation  over  and 
over  again,  and  what  my  senses  have  taught  me  during 
long  hours  of  work  and  toil.  I  have  never  permitted 
myself  to  add  or  subtract  anything  from  my  observa- 
tions because  of  the  seductions  of  preconceived  theory/' 

Nearly  fifty  years  after  the  publication  of  Auen- 
brugger 's  book,  Laennec  completed  the  development  of 
the  diagnostic  methods  necessary  for  the  differentiation 
of  chest  diseases  by  the  discovery  of  auscultation. 
His  was  the  greatest  work  ever  done  in  clinical  medi- 
cine. The  solution  of  the  meaning  of  the  multitude  of 
sounds  that  can  be  heard  in  the  human  chest  required 
a  genius  for  observation,  and  almost  infinite  patience. 
Laennec  spent  twelve  years  at  the  task,  and  then  pub- 
lished his  books  on  the  subject.  Practically  nothing  of 
importance  has  been  added  to  his  methods  and  results 
in  the  more  than  three-quarters  of  a  century  of  active 
attention  that  has  been  given  to  medicine  since  that 
time.  Laennec  did  not  expect  that  his  discovery  would 
be  taken  up  by  his  contemporaries.  He  even  refers  to 
the  cool  reception  which  had  been  given  to  Auenbrug- 


404  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

ger's  work,  and  deprecates  the  fact  that  a  man  who  had 
done  so  much  for  mankind  should  have  met  with  such 
neglect  and  lack  of  appreciation,  and  even  the  contempt 
of  his  colleagues  in  medicine,  who  could  not  bring  them- 
selves to  think  that  his  method  of  ' '  drumming  on  the 
chest, "  as  they  called  it,  could  ever  mean  much  for  the 
recognition  of  disease.1 

In  the  preface  of  his  book  Laennec,  like  Auenbrugger, 
prophesies  that  his  work  will  not  receive  the  attention 
that  it  deserves,  and  attempts  to  lessen  the  effect  of  the 
derision  that  will  be  meted  out  to  it  by  calmly  stating 
his  expectation  of  it.  It  is  curious  that  both  of  these 
men,  one  of  them  a  German  and  the  other  a  Frenchman, 
one  of  them  a  rather  stolid  Styrian,  the  other  of  the 
lively  Celtic  nature  of  the  Bretons,  should  in  turn  have 
realized,  at  a  distance  of  a  thousand  miles  and  more 
than  half  a  century  from  one  another,  just  what  the 
attitude  of  the  men  of  science  was  to  be  toward  their 
discoveries,  even  though  those  are  of  a  kind  that  were 
eventually  to  be  hailed  as  among  the  most  important 
steps  in  medical  progress  ever  made.  Certain  words  of 
Laennec's  preface  are  an  echo  of  Auenbrugger's  ex- 
pressions. He  said : 

"For  our  generation  is  not  inquisitive  as  to  what  is 
being  accomplished  by  its  sons.  Claims  of  new  discov- 
eries made  by  contemporaries  are  likely,  for  the  most 
part,  to  be  met  by  smiles  and  mocking  remarks.  It  is 
always  easier  to  condemn  than  to  test  by  actual  experi- 
ence/' 

Many  people  are  accustomed  to  think  that,  after  the 
spirit  that  came  into  the  world  with  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, men  were  less  prone  to  listen  to  authority  or  cling 
to  old-fashioned  notions,  and  that  liberalism  of  mind  is 
to  be  found  written  large  on  many  pages  of  nineteenth 
century  scientific  history.  One  of  the  great  scientists 
of  the  first  part  of  the  last  century  was  Dr.  Thomas 
Young,  to  whom  we  owe  so  much  with  regard  to  the 
theory  of  light  waves  and  the  existence  of  the  ether  to 
carry  them.  Men  absolutely  refused  to  listen  to  this 
idea  at  all  at  the  beginning,  though  now  it  is  the 


1  Makers  of  Modern  Medicine,  by  James  J.  Walsh,  M.  D.,  Ph.  D.,  LL.D.    Fordham 
University  Press,  New  York,  1307. 


APPENDIX  405 

groundwork  of  most  of  our  thinking  and  of  nearly  all  of 
our  mathematical  demonstrations  with  regard  to  the 
movement  of  light.  They  not  only  refused,  however, 
but  they  expressed  their  scorn  of  the  man  who  invented 
such  a  cumbrous  theory.  Dr.  George  M.  Gould,  in  one 
of  the  volumes  of  his  Biographic  Clinics,  has  told  the 
story  of  Dr.  Young's  career,  and  I  prefer  to  present  it 
in  his  words  rather  than  my  own. 

"A  practicing,  physician,  Young,  as  early  as  1801, 
hit  upon  the  true  theory  of  the  luminiferous  ether,  and 
of  light  and  color,  which  nearly  a  century  before  had 
been  discovered  by  Robert  Hooke.  But  his  scientific 
contemporaries  would  not  see  it,  and  to  avoid  persecu- 
tion and  deprivation  of  practice,  Dr.  Young  was  com- 
pelled to  publish  his  grand  discoveries  arid  papers 
anonymously.  Published  finally  by  the  Royal  Society 
(one  can  imagine  the  editor's  smile  of  superior  wisdom 
over  such  trash) ,  they  were  as  utterly  ignored  as  were 
those  of  Mitchell,  Thompson  and  Martin  as  to  eye- 
strain,  two  or  three  generations  later.  Arago  finally 
championed  Dr.  Young's  theory  in  the  French  Academy, 
but  the  leaders,  LaPlace,  Poissin,  Biot,  etc.,  denounced 
and  conquered,  and  not  until  1823  would  the  Academy 
allow  the  publication  of  Fresnel's  papers  on  the  subject ; 
in  about  twenty-five  years  the  silencers  were  themselves 
silenced.  But  Young  had  been  silenced  too  ;  his  disgust 
was  so  great  that  he  resigned  from  the  Royal  Society, 
and  devoted  himself  to  his  poor  medical  practice  and  to 
deciphering  Egyptian  hieroglyphics. "  (In  which,  by 
the  way,  as  might  be  expected  I  suppose,  he  made  a 
distinguished  name  for  himself. ) 

Many  another  important  medical  discoverer  in  the 
nineteenth  century  found  the  truth  of  Auenbrugger's 
and  Laennec's  expressions,  and  met  the  fate  of  Jenner 
and  Young.  Next  to  vaccination  for  small-pox,  proba- 
bly the  most  important  advance  in  nineteenth  century 
medicine  was  the  discovery  of  the  cause  of  puerperal 
fever,  and  the  consequent  diminution  of  the  death-rate 
from  that  very  fatal  disease.  At  one  time  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  it  was  much  more  dangerous  for  a 
woman  to  have  a  child  in  a  lying-in  hospital  in  Europe 
than  to  go  through  an  attack  of  typhoid  fever.  The 
death-rate  was  at  least  10  per  cent.  When  it  was 


406  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

reduced  to  five  per  cent,  the  hospital  authorities  felt 
quite  self-complacent  about  it.  Shortly  after  the  be- 
ginning of  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, there  began  to  come  glimmerings  of  the  real  cause 
of  the  affection.  It  was  not  due  to  something  from  within 
the  patient,  but  was  caused  by  a  materies  morbi  intro- 
duced from  without.  Usually  the  physician  in  attend- 
ance was  responsible  for  the  introduction  of  it.  He 
came  to  these  patients  after  contact  with  septic  cases 
of  various  kinds  improperly  cleansed.  The  consequence 
was  that  he  infected  them,  and  puerperal  fever  was 
contracted. 

It  would  seem  as  though  the  medical  profession  would 
be  very  ready  and  willing  to  test  any  such  simple  ex- 
planation of  the  origin  of  a  serious  disease,  and'  if 
possible  secure  its  diminution.  On  the  contrary,  the  old 
men  proved  to  be  so  wedded  to  the  notion  that  the 
physician  could  not  possibly  be  the  cause  of  this  serious 
condition,  that  they  were  very  bitter  in  their  denuncia- 
tion of  those  who  tried  to  introduce  the  new  idea.  One 
distinguished  old  professor  of  midwifery  declared  very 
superciliously  that,  of  course,  it  was  a  very  charming 
thing  for  a  young  poet  to  insist  on  the  notion  that  these 
serious  diseases  were  not  associated  necessarily  with 
the  beautiful  function  of  maternity  itself,  but  were 
extraneous  factors  quite  apart  from  it;  but  there  was 
no  doubt,  he  declared,  that  the  affection  came  from 
within,  all  the  same,  and  that  the  youthful  poet's  idea 
was  only  a  pleasant  fiction.  The  poet  in  the  case  was 
Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  and,  needless  to  say  now, 
though  he  was  laboring  under  the  heinous  crime  of 
being  a  young  man,  and  did  indulge  in  occasional 
poetry,  he  was  entirely  in  the  right,  and  the  distin- 
guished old  professor  entirely  in  the  wrong.  No  little 
denunciation  was  heaped  upon  the  devoted  head  of 
Holmes,  however,  for  his  strenuous  humanitarian  work 
with  regard  to  this  subject.  It  cost  Holmes  some 
of  his  medical  friends  and  not  a  little  practice  for 
some  time.  Even  in  America,  then  the  land  of  the 
free,  there  was  a  strong  conservatism  that  made  the 
introduction  of  new  ideas  a  very  difficult  and  almost  a 
dangerous  thing. 

The  man  who  worked  out  the  same  idea  to  a  practical 


APPENDIX  407 

effect  in  Europe  met  with  even  more  determined  opposi- 
tion than  did  our  own  Dr.  Holmes.  I  refer,  of  course, 
to  Semmelweiss,  who,  while  teaching  obstetrics  in 
Vienna,  realized  that  it  was  the  students  and  doctors  en- 
gaged in  pathological  work  at  the  same  time  that  they 
were  taking  out  their  courses  in  obstetrics,  who  caused 
the  havoc  among  the  patients  in  his  (obstetrical)  depart- 
ment in  the  hospital.  The  death-rate  in  the  hands  of 
these  obstetrical  attendants,  who  came  directly  to  the 
lying-in  department  from  their  work  in  pathology,  was 
sometimes  as  high  as  one  in  five.  Semmelweiss  insisted 
that  this  state  of  affairs  must  cease,  and  that  while  the 
students  were  doing  the  pathological  work  they  must 
not  be  allowed  to  attend  obstetrical  cases.  This  at  once 
raised  a  storm  of  opposition  in  the  university.  Poor 
Semmelweiss  lost  his  position  as  a  consequence  of  it.  In 
the  midst  of  the  rancorous  discussion  that  followed, 
Semmelweiss  lost  his  reason  also  for  a  time,  and  had  to 
be  cared  for  in  an  insane  asylum.  It  is  well  recognized 
that  his  beneficent  discovery  was  for  him  the  cause  of 
many  years  of  unhappiness. 

Nor  must  it  be  thought  that  it  is  only  with  regard  to 
medical  discoveries  that  such  opposition— bitter,  personal, 
rancorous  and  persecutory- can  be  aroused.  While  it 
might  be  thought  that  the  great  minds  in  the  ordinary 
natural  sciences  would  have  no  reason  for  the  personal  ele- 
ment which  more  or  less  necessarily  enters  into  medical 
discussion  because  men  had  been  applying  for  gain  the 
notions  that  now  are  proved  to  be  incorrect,  and  their 
reputations  have  been  made  on  such  applications,  to  think 
that  all  was  placid  and  quiet  in  the  physical  sciences 
would  be  a  serious  mistake.  Long  ago  Virgil  asked  in 
a  famous  line,  "Is  it  possible  that  there  can  be  such 
great  wrath  in  divine  minds  ?  "  —  '  'tantaene  animae 
celestibus  irae"—  and  we  might  be  tempted  to  ask,  can 
there  be  such  foolish  intolerance  on  the  part  of  scientific 
teachers?  but  the  answer  would  be  the  same  in  each 
case.  Virgil  found  that  the  gods  were  very  human  in 
this  respect,  and  anyone  who  knows  the  history  of  sci- 
ence knows  the  scientists  are  like  the  pagan  dieties, 
when  their  conservative  spirit  is  aroused,  and  when  they 
are  up  in  arms,  as  they  fondly  think,  to  protect  their  be- 
loved science  from  foolish  innovators. 


408  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

A  typical  example  of  the  sort  of  opposition  which  a 
modern  discoverer  in  science  meets  with  is  to  be  found 
in  the  life  of  Ohm,  after  whom,  because  of  his  discovery 
of  the  law  of  electrical  resistance,  the  unit  of  resistance 
is  called.  When  he  made  his  discovery  Ohm  was  work- 
ing in  the  Gymnasium  at  Cologne.  The  leading  phys- 
icists of  the  day  could  not  bring  themselves  to  believe 
that  this  comparatively  young  man— he  was  scarcely 
forty  at  the  time— could  have  made  a  discovery  that 
went  far  beyond  their  knowledge.  His  paper  on  the 
subject  was  discussed  rather  coldly  and  without  any 
recognition  of  the  far-reaching  significance  of  the  work 
that  he  had  accomplished.  A  distinguished  representative 
of  the  University  of  Berlin  criticised  it  severely.  As  the 
law  was  advanced  on  mathematical  as  well  as  ex- 
perimental grounds,  the  opinion  of  the  university  author- 
ities at  Berlin  was  looked  upon  as  extremely  important, 
since  at  the  time  mathematics  was  the  forte  there.  The 
minister  of  education  took  his  cue  from  the  authorities 
at  Berlin.  Ohm  and  his  friends  urged  his  appointment 
to  a  university  position.  This  was  not  only  refused,  but 
was  rejected  in  such  terms  that  Ohm  offered  his  resig- 
nation as  a  teacher.  His  resignation  was  accepted  with 
regrets  by  the  ministry,  but  with  a  distinct  expression 
that  Ohm  must  not  expect  other  than  a  gymnasium  posi- 
tion. The  consequence  of  this  misunderstanding  was 
that  other  teaching  institutions  in  Germany  would  not 
give  him  a  place  on  their  staff,  because  of  the  danger  of 
misunderstanding  with  the  ministry  of  education.  Ohm 
had  to  accept  a  private  tutorship  in  mathematics  in 
Berlin  and  a  few  hours  of  teaching  in  a  military  school, 
for  which  he  was  paid  three  hundred  thalers  a  year. 
This  would  be  something  over  $200  in  our  money,  though 
money  was  worth,  in  buying  power,  probably  two  or 
three  times  as  much  as  it  is  at  the  present  time.  Six 
precious  years  of  Ohm's  life,  at  the  very  acme  of  his 
powers  as  an  investigator,  were  thus  spent  away  from 
the  larger  educational  institutions  and  their  opportunities 
for  research,  because  men  would  not  accept  the  great 
discovery  that  he  had  made,  and  could  not  be  brought  to 
understand  that  a  genius  might  come  along  to  revolution- 
ize all  their  thinking,  though  he  did  his  work  from  an 
obscure  position,  and  practically  attracted  no  attention 


APPENDIX  409 

before  he  found  this  wonderful  clue  to  the  maze  of 
electrical  science,  which  meant  so  much  for  the  elucida- 
tion of  difficulties  hitherto  insoluble. 

Always  men  find  some  excuse  other  than  their  own 
unwillingness  to  confess  that  they  were  wrong.  It  is  to 
this  that  they  object,  and  not  the  acceptance  of  the  new 
truth.  In  the  course  of  writing  the  biographies  of  the 
Makers  of  Modern  Medicine,  published  last  year,  and  the 
Makers  of  Electricity,  which  is  now  preparing  for  the 
press,  one  fact  proved  to  be  very  striking.  It  is  that 
discoverers  of  really  great  truths  are  practically  always 
what  we  would  call  young  men,  and  what  older  men  are 
apt  to  think  of  as  scarcely  more  than  mere  boys.  Such 
men  as  Morgagni,  the  Father  of  Pathology ;  Laennec, 
the  Father  of  Pulmonary  Diagnosis  ;  Stokes,  who  taught 
us  so  much  about  the  lungs  ;  and  Corrigan,  who  laid  the 
foundation  of  exact  knowledge  in  heart  diseases,— were 
under  twenty-five  when  they  made  their  primal  dis- 
covery, and  some  of  them  scarcely  more  than  twenty. 
Vesalius  published  his  great  work  on  anatomy  when  he 
was  not  yet  thirty,  and  Stensen  did  his  best  work  under 
twenty-five.  When  such  men  attempt  to  teach  their 
elders,  of  course  they  are  properly  put  in  their  places 
by  their  elders,  and  this  often  includes  a  good  deal  of 
bitter  satire  and  discouragement.  It  is  the  eternal  con- 
flict between  youth  and  age  that  constitutes  the  main 
reason  for  opposition  to  progress  in  any  form  of  knowl- 
edge, for  youth  will  be  progressive  and  age  will  be  con- 
servative. Unfortunately  age  often  dissembles  the 
reasons  for  its  opposition  even  to  itself,  and  religion 
and  common  sense  and  supposedly  established  principles 
of  science  are  all  appealed  to  as  contradicted  by  the  new 
doctrine  introduced  by  young  men,  the  truth  of  which 
their  elders  cannot  see. 

Nor  must  it  be  thought  that  the  second  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  free  from  this  tendency  to  per- 
secute those  who  made  advances  in  medicine.  There  is 
probably  no  form  of  treatment  which,  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  know  most  about  the  disease,  that  has  done 
more  to  save  awful  suffering  in  mankind  than  the 
Pasteur  treatment  for  rabies.  Anyone  who  knows  any- 
thing about  the  history  of  the  introduction  of  that 
treatment  will  not  be  likely  to  forget  how  much  of  pain 


410  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

and  suffering  the  discovery  and  introduction  of  it  cost 
its  author.  Nothing  too  bitter  could  be  said  by  the 
medical  profession  of  Germany  for  many  years  after  the 
treatment  was  first  broached.  One  of  the  most  distin- 
guished of  German  medical  discoverers  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  said,  in  a  very  climax  of  satire,  "that 
the  distinguished  Frenchman  deserved  to  be  well  known 
as  one  who  treated  diseases  of  which  he  knew  nothing 
by  remedies  of  which  he  knew  less."  His  good  faith 
was  impugned,  his  statistics  scorned,  his  results 
laughed  at,  even  his  friends  hesitated  to  say  anything 
on  the  subject.  Those  who  were  close  to  Pasteur  know- 
that  he  suffered,  for  his  nature  was  of  the  most  sensi- 
tive, veritable  torment  because  of  this  bitter  opposition, 
which  at  one  time,  because  his  French  colleagues  also 
were  sceptical  of  his  treatment,  threatened  to  impair 
the  usefulness  of  our  greatest  discoverer  in  nineteenth 
century  medicine  and  leave  him  without  that  support 
which  would  enable  him  to  go  on  with  his  precious  in- 
vestigation. 

The  more  recent  furore  against  antitoxin  is  still  in 
many  persons'  minds.  Physicians  who  used  it,  and  in 
whose  cases  serious  results  took  place,  not  the  conse- 
quence of  the  antitoxin,  but  the  consequence  of  factors 
of  the  disease  over  which  they  had  no  control,  sometimes 
suffered  seriously  in  their  practice.  All  forms  of  oppo- 
sition were  aroused  against  it.  Even  at  the  present 
time  one  still  hears  of  the  crime,  as  some  do  not  hesitate 
to  call  it,  of  injecting  the  serum  of  a  diseased  animal 
into  the  veins  of  the  human  being,  and  above  all  a  little 
child.  There  are  men  (intelligent  men !)  who  do  not 
stop  short  of  tracing  all  sorts  of  disease  incidents  that 
happen  after  such  an  injection,  even  many  years  later, 
to  the  evil  effects  of  the  horse  serum  employed.  Such 
people  are  exercising  that  superstitious  fanatic  faculty 
which  at  all  times  has  caused  the  obstinately  conserva- 
tive to  seek  and  find  the  most  serious  objections  to  any 
new  doctrine,  careless  of  the  consequences  that  they 
might  bring  on  the  discoverer  or  the  benefit  they  might 
prevent  for  the  mass  of  humanity. 

Originally  vaccination  was  opposed  by  certain  clergy- 
men on  the  grounds  of  theological  objection  to  its  use. 
At  the  present  time  most  of  such  objection  has  ceased. 


APPENDIX 


It  is  still  clergymen,  however,  who  are  the  most  promi- 
nent among  the  anti-vaccinationists,  though  now  they 
usually  find  biological  and  pathological,  instead  of  theo- 
logical reasons.  They  proclaim  it  a  crime  against  nature, 
from  the  biological  standpoint,  that  the  disease  of  an 
animal  should  be  conveyed  to  man,  even  for  protective 
purposes.  At  the  present  time  one  can  find  just  as 
bitter  objections  to  vaccination  in  anti-  vaccination  jour- 
nals as  when  the  subject  was  first  brought  under  dis- 
cussion. Men  must  find  some  reason  for  their  oppo- 
sition, and  they  take  the  weapon  that  is  handiest  and 
that  they  are  able  to  use  with  best  effect.  In  an  era 
when  theological  ideas  were  dominant,  theology  was 
ready  at  hand  for  this  purpose,  but  any  other  ology  will 
do  just  as  well,  and  the  history  of  science,  even  in  the 
present  day,  will  show  that  always  some  ology,  regard- 
less of  human  feelings,  is  used  quite  as  ruthlessly  and 
as  ^cruelly  as  in  the  olden  days.  There  are  tortures  of 
spirit  that  are  worse  than  prison  or  even  fire. 

When  we  recall  how  few  examples  there  are  of  oppo- 
sition to  science  on  the  part  of  ecclesiastics,  and  how 
most  of  these  prove  on  careful  examination  to  be  due  to 
misunderstandings  rather  than  to  actual  desire  to 
prevent  the  development  of  science,  the  stories  of  the 
way  in  which  discoveries  in  science  were  received  in 
more  modern  times  become  a  striking  lesson  that 
makes  us  appreciate  the  broad-mindedness  and  liberal 
policy  of  ecclesiastical  educators  in  the  olden  time. 
They  were  evidently  much  more  ready  to  accept  novel 
ideas,  and  much  less  prone  to  set  themselves  up  in 
opposition  to  them,  than  the  educational  authorities  of 
more  modern  times.  This  is  the  phase  of  the  history  of 
education  in  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  that  deserves  the  most  careful  study,  and  that 
should  make  modern  educators  feel  proud  of  their 
kinship  with  these  old  founders  and  patrons  in  educa- 
tion, who  at  the  same  time  furnish  an  example  of 
liberality  of  mind  that  it  would  be  very  beneficial  to 
have  in  our  modern  supposedly  free  universities. 

For  while  we  are  prone  to  be  proud  of  our  academic 
freedom,  we  have  had  more  than  one  example  in  recent 
times  of  how  dangerous  it  is  for  a  man,  even  though  he 
may  be  recognized  as  an  authority  in  his  department, 


412  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 


to  treat  certain  economic  questions  from  a  standpoint 
that  is  not  favored  by  the  rest  of  the  faculty,  or  by  the 
Board  of  Governors,  or,  above  all,  by  certain  munificent 
patrons  of  the  particular  educational  institution.  Much 
has  been  said  about  religious  educational  institutions, 
about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  so  hamper- 
ing the  work  of  men  in  the  physical  sciences,  especially 
with  regard  to  problems  in  geology  and  evolution,  as 
to  nullify  progress.  Just  this  same  thing,  however,  is 
true  with  regard  to  many  economic  questions,  because 
of  the  attitude  of  educational  interests  with  regard  to 
free  trade  and  protection,  single  tax,  and  socialism  and 
the  like.  No  professor  of  science  at  a  religious  institu- 
tion ever  felt  himself  more  in  the  grip  of  old-fashioned 
notions  than  do  certain  professors  in  departments  of 
finance  and  sociology  with  regard  to  problems  that  are 
now  of  the  most  profound  interest.  Men  have  changed 
the  reason  for  their  conservatism,  but  the  conservatism 
itself  remains,  and  apparently  always  will  remain.  This 
is  what  must  be  realized  when  the  stories  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal opposition  to  progress  are  told. 


APPENDIX   II. 

Latin  text  of  the  Papal  bulls  and  decrees  which  are  given  in 
English  in  the  body  of  this  book.  These  documents  are  taken  from 
Tomassetti's  Bullarium,  except  the  decree  of  John  XXII.  with  re- 
gard to  alchemies,  which  is  taken  from  the  Corpus  Juris  Canonici, 
Tome  II.,  Lyons,  1779. 

I. 

Bull  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  with  regard  to  burials,  which  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  misconstrued  into  a  prohibition  of  dissection. 

De  Sepulturis,  Bonifacius  VIII.  Corpora  defunctorum  exenternantes,  et  ea  im- 
maniter  decoquentes,  ut  ossa  a  carnibus  separata  f  erant  sepelienda  in  terram  suam, 
ipso  facto  sunt  excommunicati. 

CAP.  I.  Detestandae  f eritatis  abusum,  quern  ex  quodam  more  (Alias,  mode)  horri- 
bili  nonnulli  fideles  improvide  prosequuntur,  nos  piae  intentionis  ducti  proposito,  ne 
abusus  praedicti  saevitia  ulterius  corpora  humana  dilaceret,  mentesque  fidelium  hor- 
rore  commoveat,  et  perturbet  auditum,  digne  decrevimus  abolendum.  Praefati  nam- 
que  fideles  hujus  suae  improbandae  utique  consuetudinis  vitio  intendentes,  si  quisquam 
ex  eis  genere  nobilis,  vel  dignitatis  titulo  insignitus,  praesertim  extra  suarum  partium 
limites  debitum  naturae  persolvat,  in  suis,  vel  alienis  remotis  partibus  sepultura 
electa ;  defuncti  corpus  ex  quodam  impiae  pietatis  affectu  truculenter  exenterant,  ac 
illud  membratim,  vel  in  frusta  immaniter  concidentes,  ea  subsequenter  aquis  immersa 
exponunt  ignibus  decoquenda.  Et  tandem  (ab  ossibus  tegumento  carnis  excusso) 
eaclem  ad  partes  praedictas  mittunt,  seu  def  erunt  tumulanda.  Quod  non  solum  Divi- 
nao  majestatis  conspectui  abominabile  plurimum  redditur,  sed  etiam  humanae  con- 
siderationis  obtutibus  occurrit  vehementius  abhorrendum.  Volentes  igitur  (prout  officii 
nostri  debitum  exigit),  illud  in  hac  parte  remedium  adhibere,  per  quod  tantae  abomi- 
nationis,  tantaeque  immanitatis,  et  impietatis  abusus  penitus  deleatur,  nee  extenda- 
tur  ad  alios ;  Apostolica  auctoritate  statuimus,  et  ordinamus,  ut  cum  quis  cujuscum- 
que  status,  aut  generis,  seu  dignitatis  exstitent :  in  civitatibus,  terris,  seu  locis,  in 
quibus  catholicae  fidei  cultus  viget,  diem  de  caetero  claudet  extremum  circa  corpora 
defunctorum  hujusmodi  abusus,  vel  similis  nullatenus  observetur,  nee  fidelium  manus 
tanta  immanitate  foedentur.  Sed  ut  defunctorum  corpora  sic  impie,  ac  crudeliter  non 
tractentur,  et  deferantur  ad  loca  in  quibus  viventes  eligerint  sepeliri,  aut  in  civitate, 
castro,  vel  loco  ubi  decesserint,  vel  loco  vicino  ecclesiasticae  sepulturae  tradantur  ad 
tempus,  ita,  quod  demum  incineratis  corporibus,  aut  alias  ad  loca  ubi  sepulturam 
eligerint,  deportentur,  et  sepeliantur  in  eis.  Nos  enim  si  praedicti  defuncti  executor, 
vel  executores,  aut  familiares  ejus,  seu  quivis  alii  cujuscumque  ordinis,  conditionis, 
status  aut  gradus  fuerint  etiam  si  pontificali  dignitate  praef ulgeant,  aliquid  contra 
hujusmodi  nostri  statuti,  et  ordinationis  tenorem  praesumpserint  attentare  defunc- 
torum corpora  sic  inhumaniter  et  crudeliter  pertractando,  vel  faciendo  pertractari 

413 


414  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

excommunicationis  sententiam  (quam  exnunc  in  ipsos  plurimos)  ipso  facto  se  move- 
rint  incursuros,  a  qua  non  nisi  per  Apostolicam  sedem  (praeterquam  in  mortis  ar- 
ticulo)  possint  absolutionis  beneficium  obtinere.  Et  nihilominus  ille,  cujus  corpus  sic 
inhumane  tractatum  fuerit,  ecclesiastica  careat  sepultura.  Nulli  eigo,  etc.  Datum 
Latera.  XII.  Calen.  Martii,  Pontificatus  nostri  anno  VI. 

II. 

Decree  of  Pope  John  XXII.  forbidding  alchemies,  by  which  he 
prohibited  the  pretended  making  of  gold  and  silver,  but  is  claimed 
to  have  hampered  the  progress  of  chemistry. 

De  Crimine  Falsi  Titulus  VI.  I  Joannis  XXII.  [circa  annum  1317  Avenioni] 
Alkimise  hie  prohibentur,  et  puniuntur  facientes  et  fieri  procurantes  :  quoniam  tan- 
turn  de  vero  auro  et  argento  debent  inferre  in  publicum,  ut  pauperibus  erogetur 
quantum  de  falso  et  adulterine  posuerunt.  Et  si  eorum  facultates  non  sumeiunt, 
poena  per  judicis  discretionem  in  aliam  commutabitur,  et  infames  fiunt.  Et  si  sint 
clerici  beneficiis  habitis  privantur  et  ad  habenda  inhabiles  efficiuntur.  (Vide  Extra- 
vagantem  ejusdem  Joannis  quae  incipit  "Providens"  et  est  sub  eodem  titulo 
collocata.) 

Spondent  quas  non  exhibent  divitias,  pauperes  Alchimistae ;  pariter  qui  se  sapientes 
existimant  in  f oveam  incidunt  quam  f  ecerunt.  Nam  haud  dubie  hujus  artis  Alchi- 
miae  alterutrum  se  prof  essores  ludificant ;  cum  suae  ignorantiaa  conscii,  eos,  qui  supra 
ipsos  aliquid  hujusmodi  dixerint,  admirentur :  quibus  cum  veritas  quaesita  non  sup- 
petat,  diem  cernunt,  facultates  exhauriunt ;  idemque  verbis  dissimulant  f alsitatem, 
ut  tandem  quod  non  est  in  rerum  natura,  esse  verum  aurum  vel  argentum  sophistics 
transmutatione  confingant ;  eoque  interdum  eorum  temeritas  damnata  et  damnanda 
progreditur,  ut  fictis  metallis  cudant  publicae  monetae  characteres  fidis  oculis,  et  non 
alias  Alchimicum  f  ornacis  ignem  vulgum  ignorantem  eludant.  Haec  itaque  perpetuis 
volentes  exulare  temporibus,  hac  edictali  constitutione  sancimus,  ut  quicumque 
hujusmodi  aurum  vel  argentum  f  eceririt,  vel  fieri  secuto  facto  mandaverint,  vel  ad  hoc 
scienter  (dum  id  fieret)  f  acientibus  ministraverint,  aut  scienter  vel  auro  vel  argento  usi 
fuerint  vendendo  vel  dando  in  solutum :  verum  tanti  ponderis  aurum  vel  argentum 
poenae  nomine  inferre  cogantur  in  publicum  pauperibus  erogandum,  quanti  Alchimi- 
cum existat ;  circa  quod  eos  aliquo  praedictorum  modorum  legitime  constiterit  deli- 
quisse:  f  acientibus  nihilominus  aurum  vel  argentum  Alchimicum  aut  ipso,  praamittitur, 
scienter  utentibus  perpetuae,  infamiae  nota  respersis.  Quod  si  ad  praefatam  poenam 
pecuniarum  exsolvendam  deliquentium  ipsorum  facultates  non  sufficiant,  poterit  dis- 
creti  moderatio  judicis  poenam  hanc  in  aliam  (puta  carceris,  vel  alteram  juxta  qualita- 
tem  negotii  personarum  differentiam  aliasque  attendendo  circumstantias)  commutare. 
Hlos  vero  qui  in  tantae  ignorantiam  inf elicitatis  proruperint,  ut  nedum  nummos  vedunt, 
sed  naturalis  juris  praecepta  contemnant,  artis  excedant  metas,  legumque  violant 
interdicta  scienter  videlicet  adulterinam  ex  auro  et  argento  Alchimico  cudendo  seu 
f  undendo,  cudi  seu  f undi  f aciendo  monetam ;  hac  animadversione  percelli  jubemus,  ut 
ipsorum  bona  deserantur  carceri,  ipsique  perpetuo  sint  infames.  Et  si  clerici  fuerint 
delinquentes,  ipsi  ultra  praedictas  poenas  priventur  beneficiis  habitis  et  prorsus  red- 
dantur  inhabiles  ad  habenda. 

III. 

Bull  of  Pope  John  XXII.  forbidding  certain  magical  practices, 
which,  like  the  prohibition  of  alchemies,  protected  his  flock  from 


APPENDIX.  415 

sharpers  of  various  kinds,  sooth-sayers,  pretended  sorcerers,  magic- 
ians, et  id  genus  omne.  This  is  the  bull  which  Pres.  White  quotes 
under  its  Latin  title,  Super  illius  specula^  as  if  he  had  it  under  his 
eye  at  the  moment  of  writing,  and  which  he  says  "  shows  Pope  John 
himself,  in  spite  of  his  infallibility,  sunk  in  superstition  the  most 
abject  and  debasing  ;  for  in  this  bull,  supposed  to  be  inspired  from 
wisdom  from  on  high,  Pope  John  complains  that  both  he  and  his 
flock  are  in  danger  of  their  lives  by  the  arts  of  the  sorcerers.  He 
(the  Pope)  declares  that  such  sorcerers  can  shut  up  devils  in  mirrors 
and  finger-rings  and  phials  and  kill  men  and  women  by  a  magic 
word  ;  that  they  had  tried  to  kill  him  by  piercing  a  waxen  image  of 
him  with  needles  in  the  name  of  the  devil. ' ' 

Contra  immolantes  daemonibus,  aut  responsa  et  auxilia  ab  eis  postulantes ;  sive 
tenentes  libros  de  eiusmodi  erroribus  tractantes. 

loannes  episcopus  servus  servorum  Dei,  ad  perpetuam  rei  memoriam. 

Super  illius  specula,  quamvis  immeriti,  Eiusf  avente  dementia  qui  primum  hominem 
humani  quidem  generis  protoplastum,  terrenis  praclatum,  divinis  virtutibus  ador- 
natum,  conformem  et  consimilem  imagini  suse  fecit,  revocavit  profugum,  legem 
dando ;  ac  demum  liberavit  captivum,  reinvenit  perditum,  et  redemit  venditum, 
merito  suae  Passionis,  ut  contemplaremur  ex  ilia  super  filios  hominum,  qui  christianae 
religionis  culta  Deum  intelligunt  et  requirunt :  dolenter  advertimus,  quod  etiara  cum 
nostrorum  turbatione  viscerum  cogitamus  quamplures  esse  solo  nomine  christianos, 
qui  relicto  primo  veritatis  lumine,  tanto  erroris  caligine  obnubilantur,  quod  cum 
morte  f oedus  ineunt,  et  pactum  f aciunt  cum  inferno :  daemonibus  namque  immolant, 
hos  adorant,  fabricant  ac  fabricari  procurant  imagines,  annulum  vel  speculum,  vel 
phialam,  vel  rem  quamcumque  aliam  magice  ad  daemones  inibi  alligandos,  ab  his 
petunt  responsa,  ab  his  recipiunt,  et  pro  implendis  pravis  suis  desideriis  auxilia 
postulant,  pro  re  faet  idissima  faetidam  exhibent  servitutem :  Proh  dolor !  hujus- 
modi  morbus  pestifer,  nunc  per  mundum  solito  amplius  convalescens,  eccessive 
gravius  inficit  Christi  gregem. 

1.  Cum  igitur,  ex  debito  suscepti  pastoral  is  officii,  oves  aberrantes  per  devia  teneamur 
ad  caulas  Christi  reducere,  et  excludere  a  grege  dominico  morbidas,  ne  alias  corrumpant: 
hoc  edicto  in  perpetuum  valituro,  de  consilio  f  ratrum  nostrorum,  monemus  omnes  et 
singulos  renatos  f onte  baptismatis,  in  virtute  sanctae  obedientiae,  et  sub  intermina- 
tione  anathematis,  praecipientes  eisdem,  quod  nullus  ipsorum  aliquid  de  perversis 
dictis  dogmatibus  docere  ac  addiscere  audeat :  vel,  quod  execrabilius  est,  quomodo- 
libet  alio  modo,  in  aliquo  illis  uti. 

2.  Et  quia  dignum  est,  quod  hi,  qui  per  sua  opera  perversa  spernunt  Altissimum, 
poenis  suis  pro  culpis  debitis  percellantur :    nos  in  omnes  et  singulos,  qui  contra 
nostra  saluberrima  monita  et  mandata  facere  de  praedictis  quicquam  praesumpserint, 
excommunicationis  sententiam  promulgamus,  quam  ipsos  incurrere  volumus  ipso 
facto.    Statuentes  firmiter,  quod  praeter  poenas  prsedictas,  contra  tales,  qui  admoniti 
de  praedictis  seu  praedictorum  aliquo  infra  octo  dies  a  monitione  computandos  praefata, 
a  praefatis  non  se  correxerint,  ad  infligendas  poenas  omnes  et  singulas,  praeter  DO- 
norum  confiscationem  dumtaxat,  quas  de  iure  merentur  haeretici,  per  suos  compe- 
tentes  iudices  procedetur. 

3.  Verum  cum  sit  expediens,  quod  ad  haec  tarn  nefanda  omnis  via  omnisque  occasio 
praecludatur,  de  dictorum  nostrorum  fratrum  consilio,  universis  praecipimus  et  man- 
damus, quod  nullus  eorum  libellos,  scripturas  quascumque  ex  praefatis  damnatis  erro- 
bus  quicquam  continentes,  habere  aut  tenere  vel  in  ipsis  studere  prsesumat '  quin 


416  THE    POPES  AND    SCIENCE 


potius  volumus,  et  in  virtute  sanctae  obedientise  cunctis  praecipimus.  quod  quicum- 
que  de  scripturis  praef atis  vel  libellis  quicquam  habuerint,  infra  octo  dierum  spatium 
ab  .huiusmodi  edicti  nostri  notitia  computandum,  totum  et  in  toto  et  in  qualibet  sui 
parte  abolere  et  comburere  teneantur  :  alioquin  volumus,  quod  incurrant  sententiam 
excommunicationis  ipso  facto,  processuri  contra  contemptores  huiusmodi  (cum  con- 
stiterit)  ad  pcenas  alias  graviores. 
Datum  Avenione,  etc. 

IV. 

Bull  of  Pope  John  XXII.  authorizing  the  institution  of  chairs  of 
medicine  and  arts  in  the  University  of  Perugia.  The  bull  shows 
John's  care  for  the  maintenance  of  standards  in  education,  and  is  a 
revelation  by  its  anticipation  of  requirements  for  the  Doctor's  Degree 
that  we  are  only  now  coming  to  enforce  once  more. 

Erectio  cathedrarum  medicinae  et  artium  in  Perusino  Studio,  data  insuper  f  acultate 
episcopo  licentiandi  et  laureandi  in  utraque  facultate  idoneos,  pro  quorum  examine 
nonuUse  sanciuntur  leges. 

loannes  episcopus  servus  servorum  Dei,  ad  perpetuam  rei  memoriam. 

Dum  solicitae  considerations  indagine  in  mente  revolvimus,  quam  sit  donum  sci- 
entiae  pretiosum,  quamque  illius  desiderabilis  et  gloriosa  possessio,  per  quam  pro- 
fugandur  ignorantiae  tenebrae,  et  eliminata  funditua  erroris  caligine,  studentium 
curiosa  solertia  cursus  et  actus  disponit  et  ordinat  in  lumine  veritatis ;  magno  nimi- 
rum  desidero  ducimur,  ut  literarum  studia,  in  quibus  impretiabilis  margarita  scientiaa 
reperitur,  laudanda  ubilibet  incrementa  suscipiant :  sed  in  illis  praesertim  locis  pro- 
pensius  vigeant,  quae  ad  multiplicanda  doctrinae  semina  et  germina  salutari  produ- 
cenda  fore  magis  accommoda  et  idonea  dignoscuntur. 

1.  Dudum   siquidem    felicis   recordationis    Clemens    Papa   prsedecessor   noster, 
attendens  fidei  puritatem  et  devotionem  eximiam,  quam  civitas  Perusina,  terra  pecu- 
liaris  Romanae  Ecclesiae,  ad  ipsam  Ecclesiam  ab  olim  habuisse  dignoscitur,  et  quod  illas 
ad  earn  successibus  temporum  de  bono  in  melius  augumentarat,  dignum  duxit  et 
aequitati  consonum  existimavit,  ut  civitatem  eamdem,  quam  divina  gratia  multarum 
prserogativa  bonitatum  gratiose  dotaverat,  concessione  generalis  Studii  insigniret :  et 
ut  auctore  Deo  ex  civitate  ipsa  producerentur  viri  scientia  praepollentes  auctoritate 
apostolica  statuit,  ut  in  ea  esset  Studium  generate,  illudque  vigeret  ibidem  perpetuis 
futuris  temporibus  in  qualibet  facultate,  prout  in  literis  praedecessoris  eiusdem  inde 
conf  ectis  plenius  dicitur  contineri. 

2.  Ac  subsequenter  nos,  licet  immeriti,  ad  apicem  Summi  Apostolatus  assumpti, 
civitatem  eamdem  propter  suae  devotionis  insignia  quibus  se  dignam  Apostolicse  Sedis 
gratia  exhibe'bat,  uberiore  dono  gratia?  prosequi  cupientes,  auctoritate  apostolica  de 
f ratrum  nostrorum  consilio,  venerabili  f  ratri  nostro  episcopo  Perusino  et  successori- 
bus  eius  episcopus  Perusinis,  qui  essent  pro  tempore,  impertiendi  personis  ad  hoc 
idoneis  docendi  licentiam  in  iure  canonico  et  civili  iuxta  certum  modum  in  literis 
nostris  expressum,  liberam  concessimus  potestatem,  prout  in  eisdem  literis  nostris 
plenras  et  seriosius  continetur. 

3.  Considerantes  igitur,  quod  eadem  civitas  propter  eius  commoditates  et  condi- 
tiones  quamplurimas  est  non  modicum  apta  studentibus,  ac  propterea  concessiones 
huiusmodi  ob  prof  ectus  publicos,  quos  exinde  provenire  speramus,  ampliare  volentes, 
apostolica  auctoritate  statuimus  ut  si  qui  processu  temporis  in  eodem  Studio  fuerint, 
qui  etiam  in  medicinali  scientia  et  liberalibus  artibus  scientiae  bravium  assecuti,  sibi 
docendi  licentiam,  ut  alios  liberius  erudire  valeant,  petierint  in  perpetuum,  in  prse- 
dictis  medicinali  scientia  et  artibus  examinari  possint  ibidem  et  in  eisdem  f  acultatibus 


APPENDIX  417 


titulo  magisterii  decorari :  statuentes,  ut  quotiens  aliqui  in  prsedictis  medicina  et  ar- 
tibus  f uerint  doctorandi,  prsesententur  episcopo  Perusino,  qui  pro  tempore  f  uerit,  vel 
ei,  quern  ad  hoc  praedictus  episcopus  duxerit  deputandum,  qui  magistris  huiusmodi 
facultatis,  in  qua  examinatio  fuerit  facienda,  in  studio  eodem  prassentibus,  qui  ad 
minus  quatuor  numero  in  examinatione  huiusmodi  esse  debeant,  convocatis  eos  gratis* 
et  difficultate  quacumque  sublata,  de  scientia,  f acundia,  modo  legendi,  et  aliis,  quae  in 
promovendis  ad  doctoratus  seu  magistratus  officium  requiruntur,  examinari  studeat 
diligenter;  et  illos,  quos  idoneos  repererit,  petito  secrete  magistrorum  eorumdem  con- 
silio,  quod  utique  consilium  in  ipsorum  consulentium  dispendium  vel  iacturam  reve- 
lare  quomodolibet  districtius  prohibemus,  approbet  et  admittat,  eisque  petitam 
licentiam  largiatur:  alios  minus  idoneos  nullatenus  admittendo,  postpositis  gratia, 
odio  vel  f avore. 

4.  Ut  autem  in  prasdictis  medicina  et  artibus  prasfatum  Studium  tanto  plenius 
coalescat,  quanto  peritiores  doctores  in  huiusmodi  suis  primitiis  ibidem  caeperint  actu 
regere  etdocere,  statuimus,  quod  usque  ad  triennium  vel  quatriennium  aliqui  doctores, 
duo  ad  minus,  qui  in  medicinali  scientia  in  Parisien.  vel  Bononien.  aut  aliis  f  amosis 
generalibus  Studiis  honorem  receperint  doctoratus,  ad  docendum  et  regendum  in 
scientia  medicine  et  tres  vel  duo  ad  minus,  qui  in  artibus  in  Parisien.  Studio  apud 
maiorem  Parisien.  Ecclesiam  docendi  licentiam  f  uerint  assecuti,  et  saltern  per  annum 
rexerint,  sue  docuerint  in  Parisien.  Studio  memorato,  ad  regendum  et  docendum  in 
dictis  artibus  in  praafato  Perusin.  Studio  assumantur,  qui  usque  ad  quatriennium  vel 
quinquennium,  donee  prsef  atum  Studium  in  bonis  studentibus  laudabiliter  progressum 
acceperit,  regant  et  doceant  in  eodem. 

5.  Circa  doctorandos  vero  in  scientia  medicinae  hoc  praecipue  observetur,  ut  huius- 
modi decorandi  audiverint  omnes  libros  eiusdem  sciential,  qui  in  Bononien.  vel  Pari- 
sien. Studio  a  studentibus  promovendis  consueverunt  audiri,  per  septennium,  vel  qui 
in  logicalibus  aut  philosophia  alias  forent  sufficienter  instruct!   saltern  per  quin- 
quennium in  scientia  prsedicta  studerint,  ita  quod  saltern  tribus  annis  eiusdem  sep- 
tennii  vel  quinquenni,  ut  praadicitur,  in  medicinali  scientia  audierint  in  aliquo  Studio 
generali,  et  ut  moris  est,  responderint  sub  doctoribus  et  extraordinarie  legerint  libros 
legi  extraordinarie  consuetos,  servato  circa  examinationem  ipsius  in  medicinse  sci- 
entia promovendi  more  laudabili,  qui  in  talibus  erga  eos,  qui  promoventur  in  Parisien. 
vel  Bononien.  Studio  observatur. 

6.  Circa  doctorandos  vero  in  artibus  liberalibus  etiam  observetur,  quod  studuerint 
per  quatuor  vel  quinque  annos,  do  quibus  saltern  duobus  annis  audierint  in  aliquo 
Studio  generali :  ita  videlicet  ut  in  grammatica  Priscianum  maiorem  et  minorem,  et 
in  dialectica  Logicam  novam  et  veterem  Aristotelis,  ac  in  philosophia  librum  de 
anima,  et  saltern  quatuor  libros  Ethicorum  ;  et  tarn  in  iis,  quam  in  caeteris  aliis  libe- 
ralibus artibus  illos  alios  libros  audierint,  qui  in  Parisien.  Studio  per  promovendos  in 
dicta  facultate  artium  consueverint  audiri,  servato    circa    examinationem  tana  in 
communibus  quam  in  propriis  ipsius  artibus    promovendi   more   laudabili,   qui  in 
talibus  erga  eos,  qui  promoventur,  apud  praefatam  maiorem  Ecclesiam  Parisien. 
observatur. 

7.  Verum  quia  non  passim  reperiuntur  in  Studiis,  qui  omnes  huiusmodi  libros 
audierint,  praefato  Perusin.  episcopo  suisque  successoribus  Perusin  episcopis,  qui 
pro  tempore  fuerint,  indulgemus,  ut  in  auditione  aliorum  praefatorum  librorum  de 
forma  circa  licentiandos  ipsos  in  artibus,  prout  sufficientia  eorumdem  licentiandorum 
exegerit  et  sibi  videbitur  expedire,  auctoritate  nostra  valeat  dispensare. 

8.  Illi  autem,  qui  in  dicta  civitate  Perusin.  taliter  examinati  et  approbati  fuerint, 
ac  docendi  licentiam  obtinuerint,  ut  est  dictum,  ex  tune,  absque  examinatione  vel 
approbatione  alia,  regendi  et  docendi  ubique  plenam  et  liberam  habeant  auctoritate 
praesentium  facultatem,  nee  a  quoquam  valeant  prohiberi. 

9.  Sane  ut  rite  in  prsefatis  examinationibus  procedatur,  prsecipimus,  ut  tarn  epis- 


418  THE  POPES  AND   SCIENCE 


copus  Perusin.,  qui  pro  tempore  fuerit  quam  ille,  cui  praefatus  episcopus  ex  causa 
rationabili  impeditus  in  hac  parte  commiserit  vices  suas,  eidem  episcopo,  propositis 
tamen,  sed  non  tactis  Evangeliis,  ab  aliis  vero  corporaliter  tactis  iurent,  quod  in  hac 
parte  officium  suum  fideliter  exequentur.  Volumus  autem  quod  personis,  qua;  per 
examinationem  huiusmodi  repertae  f  uerint  idoneae,  huiusmodi  licentia  debeatur  im- 
pertiri,  et  quod  idem  episcopus  personaliter,  non  per  vicarium  vel  substitutum  exami- 
nationi  huiusmodi  interesse  debeat:  nisi  esset  ex  aliqua  rationabili  causa  adeo  impeditua 
quod  suam  non  posset  examination!  praedictae  personalem  praesentiam  exhibere :  in 
quo  casu  eidem  episcopo  interessendi  examinationi  huiusmodi  per  vicarium,  vel  alium 
ad  hoc  idoneum  substitutum,  tenore  prassentium  indulgemus :  et  quod  nomini  huius- 
modi impartietur  licentia,  nisi,  ei,  quern  omnis  vel  maior  pars  doctorum,  qui  huius- 
modi examinationi  intererint,  approbabunt. 

10.  Magistri  quoque,  regere  in  eodem  Studio  cupientes,  vel  alias  inibi  residentes, 
antequam  incipiant,  praestentin  manibus  dicti  episcopi  iuramentum,  quod  ipsi  vocatio 
ad  examinationes  easdem  venient,  nisi  f  uerint  legitime  impediti,  et  gratis  sine  diffi- 
cultate  dabunt  examinatori  fidele  consilium,  qui  de  examinatis  ut  digni  approbari 
debeant,  aut  indigni  merito  non  admitti.    Qui  vero  iui-amentum  huiusmodi  prsestare 
noluerint,  nee  ad  examinationes  eorumdem,  nee  etiam  ad  aliqua  ipsius  Studii  commoda 
vel  beneficia  ullatenus  admittantur. 

11.  Nulli  ergo  omnino  hominum  liceat  hanc  paginam  nostrarum  constitotionis, 
prohibitions,  concessionis,  praecepti  et  voluntatis  inf  ringere,  etc. 

Datum  Avenioni,  duodecimo  kalendas  martii,  pontificatus  nostri  anno  v. 
Dat.  die  18  f ebruarii  1321,  pontif.  anno  v. 

V. 

Bull  of  Pope  John  XXII.  in  which  he  authorizes  the  foundation  of 
a  University  in  the  City  of  Cahors,  his  birthplace,  as  a  memorial 
of  his  interest  in  the  townspeople  and  a  monument  of  his  zeal  for 
education. 

Confirmatio  erectionis  Universitatis  studiorum  in  civitate  Cadurcensi. 

loannes  episcopus  servus  servorum  Dei,  ad  perpetuam  rei  memoriam. 

Cum  civitas  Cadurcensis,  quam  excellentiae  divinae  bonitas  multiplicium  gratia- 
rum  bonis  et  dotibus  decoravit,  propter  ipsius  commoditates  et  conditiones  quam- 
plurimas  apta  non  modicum  generali  Studio  censeatur,  nos  reipublicae  multipliciter 
expedire  credentes,  quod  in  civitate  praef ata  fiat  et  emanet  fons  scientiarum  irriguus, 
de  cuius  plenitudine  hauriant  universi,  litteralibus  cupientes  imbui  document  is,  et 
etiam  cultores  sapientiae  inserantur  et  provehantur  diversarum  facultatum  dogma* 
tibus  eruditi,  facundi  et  undique  illustrati,  fructum  uberem,  largiente  Domino,  suo 
tempore  producturi ;  attendentes  quoque  sincerae  fidei  puritatem,  ac  eximiae  devo- 
tionis  affectum,  quos  dilecti  filii  consules  et  Universitas  eiusdem  civitatis  ad  nos  et 
Romanam  Ecclesiam  habere  noscuntur :  ex  praedictis  causis,  porrectis  etiam  nobis 
pro  parte  consulum  et  Universitatis  praedictae  humilibus  et  devotis  supplicationibus 
inclinati,  auctoritate  apostolica  statuimus  et  ordinamus,  quod  in  civitate  prcedicta 
perpetuis  futuris  temporibus  generate  Studium  habeatur  et  vigeat  in  qualibet  licita 
facultate,  quodque  praefatum  Studium,  ac  eius  Universitas,  ac  doctores,  magistri 
licentiati,  baccalaurei  et  scholares  pro  tempore  commorantes  causa  studiorum  ibidom, 
omnibus  privilegiis,  liberatibus  et  immunitatibus,  concessis  Studio  Tholosamensi  ao 
Universitati  eius,  plene  et  libere  gaudeant  et  utantur. 

Nulli  ergo  omnino  hominum  etc. 

Datum  Avenione  vii  idus  iunii,  pontificatus  nostri  anno  xvi. 

Dat.  die  7  iunii  1332,  pont.  anno  xvL 


APPENDIX    III. 

MEDIEVAL   LAW  FOR  THE   REGULATION  OF  THE 
PRACTICE  OF  MEDICINE. 

It  is  usually  presumed  that  the  practice  of  medicine  was  on  a  very 
low  plane  during  the  Middle  Ages,  and  that  while  only  little  was 
known  about  medical  science,  the  methods  of  practicing  the  medical 
art  were  crude,  as  befitted  an  earlier  time  in  evolution  before  modern 
advances  had  come.  Any  such  impression  is  founded  entirely  on 
ignorance  of  the  conditions  which  actually  existed.  In  his  studies 
in  the  history  of  anatomy  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Von  Toply1  quotes 
the  law  for  the  regulation  of  the  practice  of  medicine  issued  by  the 
Emperor  Frederick  II.  in  1240  or  1241.  The  Law  was  binding  on 
the  two  Sicilies,  and  shows  exactly  the  state  of  medical  practice  in 
the  southern  part  of  Italy  at  this  time.  Everything  that  we  think 
we  have  gained  by  magnificent  advances  in  modern  times  is  to  be 
found  in  this  law.  A  physician  must  have  a  diploma  from  a  university 
and  a  license  from  the  government;  he  must  have  studied  three  years 
before  taking  up  medicine— then  three  years  in  a  medical  school,  and 
then  must  have  practiced  with  a  physician  for  a  year  before  he 
will  be  allowed  to  take  up  the  practice  of  medicine  on  his  own  ac- 
count. If  he  is  to  take  up  surgery,  he  must  have  made  special  studies 
in  anatomy.  The  law  is  especially  interesting  because  of  its  regula- 
tion of  the  purity  of  drugs,  in  which  it  anticipates  by  nearly  seven 
centuries  our  Pure  Drug  Law  of  last  year.  (This  law  was  published 
in  the  form  here  given  in  the  4 '  Journal  of  the  American  Medical 
Association,"  January,  1908.) 

"While  we  are  bent  upon  making  regulations  for  the  common- 
weal of  our  loyal  subjects,  we  keep  ever  under  our  observation  the 
health  of  the  individual.  In  consideration  of  the  serious  damage 
and  the  irreparable  suffering  which  may  occur  as  a  consequence  of 
the  inexperience  of  physicians,  we  decree  that  in  future  no  one  who 
claims  the  title  of  physician  shall  exercise  the  art  of  healing  or  dare 

i  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der  Anatomie  im  Mittelalter  von  Robert  Hitter  Von 
Toply.  Leipzig,  1898. 

(419) 


420  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

to  treat  the  ailing,  except  such  as  have  beforehand,  in  our  University 
of  Salerno,  passed  a  public  examination  under  a  regular  teacher  of 
medicine,  and  been  given  a  certificate  not  only  by  the  professor  of 
medicine,  but  also  by  one  of  our  civil  officials,  which  declares  his 
trustworthiness  and  sufficient  knowledge.  This  document  must  be 
presented  to  us,  or  in  our  absence  from  the  kingdom  to  the  person 
who  remains  behind  in  our  stead,  and  must  be  followed  by  the  ob- 
taining of  a  license  to  practice  medicine  either  from  us  or  from  our 
representative  aforesaid.  Violation  of  this  law  is  to  be  punished  by 
confiscation  of  goods  and  a  year  in  prison  for  all  those  who  in 
future  dare  to  practice  medicine  without  such  permission  from  our 
authority. 

' '  Since  students  cannot  be  expected  to  learn  medical  science  unless 
they  have  previously  been  grounded  in  logic,  we  further  decree  that 
no  one  be  permitted  to  take  up  the  study  of  medical  science  without 
beforehand  having  devoted  at  least  three  full  years  to  the  study  of 
logic."  (Under  logic  at  this  time  was  included  the  study  of  prac- 
tically all  the  subjects  that  are  now  taken  up  in  the  arts  department 
of  our  universities.  Huxley,  in  his  address  before  the  University  of 
Aberdeen  on  the  occasion  of  his  inauguration  as  Rector  of  that  Uni- 
versity, said  that  "the  scholars  [of  the  early  days  of  the  univer- 
sities] studied  Grammar  and  Rhetoric  ;  Arithmetic  and  Geometry  ; 
Astronomy,  Theology  and  Music."  He  added  :  "Thus  their  work, 
however  imperfect  and  faulty,  judged  by  modern  lights,  it  may  have 
been,  brought  them  face  to  face  with  all  the  leading  aspects  of  the 
many-sided  mind  of  man.  For  these  studies  did  really  contain,  at 
any  rate,  in  embryo — sometimes,  it  may  be,  in  caricature — what  we 
now  call  Philosophy,  Mathematical  and  Physical  Science,  and  Art. 
And  I  doubt  if  the  curriculum  of  any  modern  university  shows  so 
clear  and  generous  a  comprehension  of  what  is  meant  by  culture 
as  the  old  Trivium  and  Quadrivium  does."  Huxley,  Science  and 
Education  Essays,  page  197.  New  York,  D.  Appleton  &  Co., 
1896.— J.  J.  W.) 

"After  three  years  devoted  to  these  studies,  he  (the  student)  may, 
if  he  will,  proceed  to  the  study  of  medicine,  provided  always  that 
during  the  prescribed  time  he  devotes  himself  also  to  surgery,  which 
is  a  part  of  medicine.  After  this,  and  not  before,  will  he  be  given 
the  license  to  practice,  provided  he  has  passed  an  examination  in 
legal  form  as  well  as  obtained  a  certificate  from  his  teacher  as  to  his 


APPENDIX  421 

studies  in  the  preceding  time.  After  having  spent  five  years  in 
study,  he  shall  not  practice  medicine  until  he  has  during  a  full  year 
devoted  himself  to  medical  practise  with  the  advice  and  under  the 
direction  of  an  experienced  physician.  In  the  medical  schools  the 
professors  shall  during  these  five  years  devote  themselves  to  the 
recognized  books,  both  those  of  Hippocrates  as  well  as  those  of 
Galen,  and  shall  teach  not  only  theoretic,  but  also  practical  medicine. 

"We  also  decree,  as  a  measure  intended  for  the  furtherance  of 
Public  Health,  that  no  surgeon  shall  be  allowed  to  practice,  unless 
he  has  a  written  certificate,  which  he  must  present  to  the  professor 
in  the  medical  faculty,  stating  that  he  has  spent  at  least  a  year  at 
that  part  of  medicine  which  is  necessary  as  a  guide  to  the  practice  of 
surgery,  and  that,  above  all,  he  has  learned  the  anatomy  of  the 
human  body  at  the  medical  school,  and  is  fully  equipped  in  this 
department  of  medicine,  without  which  neither  operations  of  any 
kind  can  be  undertaken  with  success  nor  fractures  be  properly 
treated. 

' '  In  every  province  of  our  Kingdom  which  is  under  our  legal 
authority,  we  decree  that  two  prudent  and  trustworthy  men,  whose 
names  must  be  sent  to  our  court,  shall  be  appointed  and  bound  by  a 
formal  oath,  under  whose  inspection  electuaries  and  syrups  and  other 
medicines  be  prepared  according  to  law  and  only  be  sold  after  such 
inspection.  In  Salerno  in  particular,  we  decree  that  this  inspector- 
ship shall  be  limited  to  those  who  have  taken  their  degrees  as 
Masters  in  Physic. 

"  We  also  decree  by  the  present  law,  that  no  one  in  the  Kingdom, 
except  in  Salerno  or  in  Naples  (in  which  were  the  two  universities 
of  the  Kingdom),  shall  undertake  to  give  lectures  on  medicine  or 
surgery,  or  presume  to  assume  the  name  of  teacher,  unless  he  shall 
have  been  very  thoroughly  examined  in  the  presence  of  a  Govern- 
ment official  and  of  a  professor  in  the  art  of  medicine. 

"Every  physician  given  a  license  to  practice  must  take  an  oath 
that  he  shall  faithfully  fulfil  all  the  requirements  of  the  law,  and  in 
addition,  whenever  it  comes  to  his  knowledge  that  any  apothecary 
has  for  sale  drugs  that  are  of  less  than  normal  strength,  he  shall  re- 
port him  to  the  court,  and  besides  he  shall  give  his  advice  to  the 
poor  without  asking  for  any  compensation.  A  physician  shall  visit 
his  patient  at  least  twice  a  day,  and  at  the  wish  of  his  patient  once 
also  at  night,  and  shall  charge  him,  in  case  the  visit  does  not  re- 


422  THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 

quire  him  to  go  out  of  the  village  or  beyond  the  walls  of  the  city, 
not  more  than  one -half  tarrene  in  gold  for  each  day's  service."  (A 
tarrene  in  gold  was  equal  to  about  thirty  cents  of  our  money.  Money 
had  at  least  twenty  times  the  purchasing  power  at  that  time  that  it 
has  now.  At  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  according  to  an  Act 
of  the  Knglish  Parliament,  a  workman  received  4d  [eight  cents]  a  day 
for  his  labor,  and  according  to  the  same  Act  of  Parliament  the  fol- 
lowing prices  were  charged  for  commodities  :  A  pair  of  shoes  cost 
eight  cents,  that  is,  a  day's  wages.  A  fat  goose  cost  seven  cents, 
less  than  a  day's  wages.  A  fat  sheep  unshorn  cost  thirty-five  cents; 
shorn,  about  twenty -five  cents.  For  four  days  pay  a  man  could  get 
enough  meat  for  himself  and  family  to  live  on  for  a  week,  besides 
material  out  of  which  his  wife  could  make  excellent  garments  for 
the  family.  A  fat  hog  cost  twice  as  much  as  a  fat  sheep,  and  a 
bullock  about  six  times  as  much.— J.  J.  W.)  "  From  a  patient  whom 
he  visits  outside  of  the  village  or  the  wall  of  the  town,  the  physician 
has  a  right  to  demand  for  a  day's  service  not  more  than  three  tar- 
renes,  to  which  maybe  added,  however,  his  expenses,  provided  that 
he  does  not  demand  more  than  four  tarrenes  altogether. 

"He  (the  regularly  licensed  physician)  must  not  enter  into  any 
business  relations  with  the  apothecary,  nor  must  he  take  any  of 
them  under  his  protection  nor  incur  any  money  obligations  in  their 
regard."  (Apparently  many  different  ways  of  getting  round  this 
regulation  had  already  been  invented,  and  the  idea  of  these  expres- 
sions seemed  to  be  to  make  it  very  clear  in  the  law  that  any  such 
business  relationship,  no  matter  what  the  excuse  or  method  of  it,  is 
forbidden.— J.  J.  W.)  "Nor  must  any  licensed  physician  keep  an 
apothecary's  shop  himself.  Apothecaries  must  conduct  their  business 
with  a  certificate  from  a  physician,  according  to  the  regulations  and 
upon  their  own  credit  and  responsibility,  and  they  shall  not  be  per- 
mitted to  sell  their  products  without  having  taken  an  oath  that  all 
their  drugs  have  been  prepared  in  the  prescribed  form,  without  any 
fraud.  The  apothecary  may  derive  the  following  profits  from  his 
sales :  Such  extracts  and  simples  as  he  need  not  keep  in  stock  for 
more  than  a  year  before  they  may  be  employed  may  be  charged  for 
at  the  rate  of  three  tarrenes  an  ounce."  (90  cents  an  ounce  seems 
very  dear,  but  this  is  the  maximum.)  "Other  medicines,  however, 
which  in  consequence  of  the  special  conditions  required  for  their 
preparation  or  for  any  other  reason  the  apothecary  has  to  have  in 


APPENDIX  423 

stock  for  more  than  a  year,  he  may  charge  for  at  the  rate  of  six  tar- 
renes  an  ounce.  Stations  for  the  preparation  of  medicines  may  not 
be  located  anywhere,  but  only  in  certain  communities  in  the  King- 
dom, as  we  prescribe  below. 

' '  We  decree  also  that  the  growers  of  plants  meant  for  medical 
purpose  shall  be  bound  by  a  solemn  oath  that  they  shall  prepare 
medicines  conscientiously,  according  to  the  rules  of  their  art,  and  as 
far  as  it  is  humanely  possible  that  they  shall  prepare  them  in  the 
presence  of  the  inspectors.  Violations  of  this  law  shall  be  punished 
by  the  confiscation  of  their  movable  goods.  If  the  inspectors,  how- 
ever, to  whose  fidelity  to  duty  the  keeping  of  these  regulations  is 
committed,  should  allow  any  fraud  in  the  matters  that  are  entrusted 
to  them,  they  shall  be  condemned  to  punishment  by  death." 


INDEX 


A.  A.  A.  S.    311 

Abditif  de  causis  morborum    84 

Accident0  of  fevers    213 

Achievement,  human    306 

Achillini    76,  86,  92,  105,  244 

Achillinus    (see  above) 

Addison    85 

After  care  of  insane    371 

Agenius,  Otto    47 

Agnostic    262 

Agnus  Dei    199 

Albert  (see  Albertus) 

Albertus  Magnus  102, 134,  287,  295,  305,  324 ; 
botany  318 ;  physical  geography  318 ; 
science  299;  scientific  treatises  319; 
scientific  works  319 

Albigenses    257 

Albucasis    99 

Alchemy    134,  135 

Alderotti,  Thaddeus    206 

Alexander  VI.    215,  231 

Allbutt    83,  173,  185,  194,  196.  214,  50f5 

Allston,  Washington    391 

Alma  Mater  Studiorum    94 

Alphanus    228 

America,  discovery  of    316 

Amerigo  Vespucci    283 

Amalgam    135 

Ampere    281 

Anatomical  preparations  46 ;  work  at  Rome 
117 

Anatomy,  history  of  114,  62;  Father  of 
111;  Golden  Age  30;  myths  61;  Re- 
naissance of  112 ;  supposed  prohibi- 
tion 28 

Anaxagoras    351 

Aneurysms    243 

Angelico    92 

Angelo    90,  112 

Angel  butterfly    358 

Angleworms  dried    184 

Annals  of  Anatomy  and  Surgery    116,  233 

Annihilation    313 

Anomalies    185 

Antimony,  Triumphal  Chariot  of    136 

Antipodes    316 

Ants    358 

Applied  science    329 

Aquinas    135,  305,  323,  325 

Arabisms    170 

Arabs,  surgical  knowledge  of    170,  192 

Aranzi    245 

Archives,  Hospitalieres    253 

Ardern,  John    188 

Argelata    76 


Aristotle    218,  292 ;  a  man  298 ;  errors  <rf 

298 

Arnold  of  Villanova    135,  186,  210 
Arts  and  architecture    329 ;  seven  devilish 

145 

Arts  and  Sciences,  Congress  of    173 
Astrology    158,  212 
Astronomy    140 
Auenbrugger    243,  403 
Augsburg    251 
Augustine,  St.    112,  296,  327 
Authors,  second-rate    315 
Autopsy  on  a   living   person      117;      on 

Cardinals    58 
Autopsy,  legal    72 
Avicenna    99,   183 
Avignon    79,   164,   182,   211 ;    development 

of    139 
Azarias,  Brother    344 


B.A.  A.S.    311 

Bacon,  Francis    283,  332,   360 

Bacon,  Roger    134,  305,  321,  323,  327,  « 

Baillie    85 

Balliol  College    95 

Bartholomseus  Anglicus    338 

Bartholomew  the  Englishman    336 

Bartolo    270 

Basel    105 

Basil,  Valentine    136 

Bauhin    209 

Baunette    308 

Baverius  de  Baveriis    213 

Bede    315 

Bedlam    255,  372;    visitors'  fees    873 

Bedlamites    374 

Bedlams    374 

Bees    358 

Belgium,  Catholic    102 

Bellinis    90 

Benedict  XIV.    218,  223 

Benedictines  and  medicine    224;     of   St. 

Maur    53,  54 
Benivieni    83,  85,  99,  105 
Berengar  of  Carpi    82,  86,  105.  115,  245,  399 
Berengarius    77 
Bertapaglia    77 
Berthelot    132 
Bertrand,  M.    394 
Bertrucci    92,  186 
Besancon    254 

Bethlehem  Hospital    369,  372 
Black  Death    272 
Blepharitis    208 
Blood,  shedding  of    168,   101 

(425) 


426 


THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 


Bodleian    95 

Body-snatching:    37,  75 

Boerhaave    244 

Bologna  19,  119,  152,  158,  174,  192,  222; 
a  Papal  City  82 

Bolognese  Medical  School    244 

Boniface  VIII.    56,   112 

Boniface's,  Pope,  Bull  29;  Bull,  meaning 
of  59;  misinterpretation  35;  reason 
for  32;  text  31;  where  found  31 

Books,  medical,  dedicated  to  Popes    235 

Borelli    217 

Botany    140,  158;  medieval    318 

Brethren  of  the  Common  Life    97 

Bridewell    255 

Bright    85 

Broeck    178 

Brother  Potamian    288 

Brothers    254 

Butterfly    358 


Csesalpino    319 

CaBsalpinus    18,   113,  119,  217.  236 

Cahors    156,   162,  appendix 

Caius,  John    94;  College    94 

Calendar,  correction  of    323 

Cambridge  Modern  History    24 

Cantharides    181 

Carlyle    347 

Cassiodorus  225 

Catalepsy  214 

Cataract  208,  230 

Catarrh  180 

Catherei    185 

Catherine  of  Siena    272 

Cecco  di  Ascolo    211 

Charles  V.    108,   116,  217 

Chartres    228 

Chauliac  45, 74, 176. 180, 181,210 ;  self-made 
man  210 

Chauvinism    237 

Chemicum  Theatrum    135 

Chemistry,  story  of    134 

Children  attending  schools    344 

Chirurgia  Magna    175,  187 

Chirurgia  Parva    187 

Chlorosis,  iron  for    214 

Church  and  art  21 ;  education  21 ;  letters 
22;  science  22 

Christ's  Hospital    255 

Church,  pressure  of    190 

Circulation  of  the  blood    238 

City  Hospitals    248,370 

Classic  histories  misleading    25 

Claude  Bernard    233 

Clavis  Sanationis    209 

Clavius,  S.  J.,  Father    217,  360 

Cleanliness,  surgical    279 

Clement  V.  13£,  150,  210 ;  VHL  237  ;  XL 
242;  XIII.  219 

Climate  at  Rome    243 

Climatology    140 

Cod  liver  oil    230 

Cologne    251,  318,  325 

St.  Come  College    195 

Colony  system    367,  372 

Columbus    86,   90,  113,  216,  232 

Committee  of  inspection  373;  of  investiga- 
tion 378 


Concordance    134 

Conflict,  supposed,  between   religion  and 

science    393 

Congregation  of  St.  Maur    54 
Conspiracy  against  the  Truth    24 
Constantino  Af  ricanus    170 
Conservation  of  energy    312 
Consultation,  Vesalius's    107 
Contact,  without  human    386 
Content  of  medieval  teaching    314 
Constanz    251 

Copenhagen,  University  of    97 
Copper  and  gold    309 
Coquelines    146 
Coryza    180 
Coro  Anatomico    246 
Corpus  Juris  Canonici    124 
Corradi    74 
Cosmos    355 
Coulomb    282 
Cruikshank    121 
Crusades  of  surgery    192 
Cycles  of  interest    131 


Dante  341;  as  a  nature  student  343; 
architect  342;  like  Goethe  348;  on 
education  361 ;  treatment  of  nature 

Daremberg    188 

Darwin    396 

Daunou    54,  230;    Protestant  tract    55 

Decretals,  sixth  book  of    56 

Deduction    1G9,  200 

Deductions  in  history    26 

De  Magnete    285 

DeMaistre    24,   165,  284 

Democritus    351 

Demonical  possession    366 

De  Motu  Cordis    242 

De  Natura  rerum    338 

Denifle    305 

De  Re  Anator^ica    235 

Desiderata  for  insane    371 

Desiderius    227 

Development  of  anatomy    63 

Diabetes    180 

Dillon,  Arthur    266 

Dinode  Garbo    212 

Director,  surgical    183 

Disease,  eradication  275 ;  What,  Where  85 
nothing  364 

Disinterested  scholars    302 

Dissection  at  Rome  59;  at  Venice  38; 
first  1302  37;  numerous  77 ;  heroof  111; 
in  public  58 ;  permissions  51 ;  practice 
of  63 ;  Rashdall  on  37 ;  supposed  pro- 
hibition 29;  systematic  76;  was  it 
hampered?  38;  wounds  47 

Documentary  evidence    25 

Dogmatism    395 

Doctorates    154 

Donatello    112 

DonatUE    305 

Donkey,  breath  of    167,  183 

Draper,  Dr.    284 

Dropsy,  cause    174 

Ducks,  queerest    203 

Ditrities  ronum      174 


INDEX 


427 


Dungeon  era  868 
Dympna,  St.  876 
Dysuria  180 


B 


Earth,  shape-size    315 

Ecclesiastical  institutions    339 

Economics    412 

Eddyisra    364 

Education  and  Popes  19;  medical  65; 
preliminary  141,  158 ;  Pope  John  XXII. 
and  141 

Edward  VI.    256 

Elementis,  De  Quatuor    208 

Elizabeth,  Queen    94,  285 

Empycma    T85 

Encyclopedia,  first  334 ;  Britannica  133 

Energy,  conservation    314 

Engineering,  mechanical    330 

Epilepsy    214 

Epochs,  four  marvelous    161 

Era  of  asylums    368 

Erhardt    137 

Erysipelas    276 

Essays,  educational    o44 

Etruscans    151 

Eugenie,  Empress    289 

Eustachius    18,  86,  114,  119,  216 

Evolution,  footsteps  of  390 ;  in  human  af- 
fairs 332 ;  of  science  93 

Exaggeration,  pious    203 

Experimentalism    297 

Experiment  in  optics    348 

Exorcism    368,  374 

Extravagantes    31,  124 

Eye  diseases    229 


Fabrica,  corporis  humani    108 

Fallopius    187 

Falsification,  crime  of    125 

Faraday    285 

Father  of  electricity    265 

Ferrara    243 

Fevers    213 

Finance    412 

Firearms,  wounds  made  by    215 

Fisher,  Dr.    233 

Flies  carry  the  plague    239 

Florence    83 

Fordham  University  Medical   School    2 

267 

Form    311 
Fortune  teller    129 

Foster,  Sir  Michael  107 ;  Prof.  Med.  237 
Fouarre,  rue  de    362 
Foundation  for  modern  thought    305 
Foundling  House    258 
Fracassate    245 
France    174 
Franciscans 
Francis  of  Siena    213 
Francis,  Saint    328 
Francis  Speretis    381 
Frankfort    251 
Frederick  IL,  body    34,  68 
Free  cities    333 
Freind    187 
Fulbert  of  Chartres    227 


Gairdner    256 

Galen    183.  194 

Galileo    16,  19,  239,  306,  332,  885 

Galvani    282 

Gardner    270 

Generation,  spontaneous    92 

Gentilis    77 

Geography    140 

Geology,  foundation    401 

Gerbert    227 

Gesner    319 

Gheel    367 

Ghent    273 

Gilbert    305 ;    of  Colchester    285 

Giordano  Bruno    393 

Giliani,  Alessandra    46 

Giotto    92 

Gladstone    393 

Glaucoma    230 

Goisbert    227 

God's  hostelry    260 

Gold,  bricks    15 ;    from  sea  water    127 

Gonorrhoea    180 

Gordon    185 

Gould,  Dr.  Geo.  M.    405 

Government  interfered    279 

Grandfather  of  Vesalius    110 

Graves  rifled    75 

Grecisms    170 

Gregory  VII.  227;    IX.  205;    XL  212 

Guido,  or  Guy  of  Montpelier    250 

Guinicelli    308 

Guyot  de  Provins    308 

Giinther  of  Andernach    103 


Habits,  religious  278 ;    of  prayer  376 

Hajckel    393 

Haeser    182 

Haly    183 

Hangman,  touch  of    183 

Harvey    96,  119,  234,  306,  396,  397 

Health,  Key  of    209 

Heart  as  a  muscle    400 

Hildebrand  227 

Hildier    227 

Hirsch's  Biographical  Lexicon    242 

History  lies    120,   122,   286 

History  of  Science    16;    of  the  Court  of 

Rome    55 

Histoire  litteraire  de  la  France    81.  53,   54 
Hoefer    132 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell    277,  405 
Holy  Ghost,  sin  against    35 
HonoriusIII.  273;    IV.  274 
Hooke,  Robert    405 
Hospital  organization  248 ;    of  Holy  Spirit 

250;    nursing   262;     community    273; 

Siena  269;    for  erysipelas  277 
Hounds,  bites  of  mad    181 
House  signs    253 
House  of  God    266 
Hugo  De  Senis    77 

Humboldt  316 ;  on  medical  science  20,  355 
Humanitarian  institutions    264 
Huxley  on  Galileo  17;    Prof.  394 
Hydrophobia    181 
Hypodermics    197 
Hysteria    214 


428 


THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 


Icterus    180 

Ignatius  Loyola    201 

Ignorance,  sublime  26 ;  four  grounds  of  290 

II  Convito    362 

Image,  waxen    145,   169 

Indestructibility  of  matter    312 

Infallibility    35,   143,   169 

Induction    169 

lonization    311 

Innocent  III.  249,  273,  276,  370  ;  XI.  240 ; 
XII.  242 

Inunctions,  mercurial    215 

Insanity  in  Middle  Ages    363 

Insane  colony  377 ;  non-violent  377 ;  brut- 
ally treated  378  ;  in  the  poor  houses 
378;  harmless  379 

Inquisition    112,   118 

Inter  ceteras  euros    160 

Intestines    185 

Interference,  spiritual    380,  385 

Institutions,  large    367 

Institutional  system    377 

Instruments,  illustrations  of    181,   185 

Intuition    384 

Investigations  by  experiment    296 

Italy,  post-graduate  work  in    96 


Latin  Empire    258 

Lavoisier    393 

Lead  into  silver    309 

Leproseries    274 

LeSexte    56 

Leo  XIII.  138,  327 ;  X.  215 

Lionardo  da  Vinci    90 

Leyden    241 

Liber  Cosmographicus    317 

Library  of  Canon  and  Civil  Law    162 

Linacre    93 

Lithium  into  copper    310 

Livers,  extracts    230 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver    383 

Logic,  groundwork  of    64 

Lombroso    383 

Lords  the  Poor    260 

Louis  IX.  334;    body  34 

Louvain  100 ;    University  of  102 

Lubbock,  Sir  John    359 

Lucan    358 

Lucretius    358 

Lully,  Raymond    308 

Lunar  rainbows    318 

Lung  Abscess    180 

Lutheranism    102 

Lyons  Council    326 


Jackson,  Dr.  Geo.    116 

Jacques  de  Vitry    265 

Janus    207,  228 

Jelliffe    367 

Jenner    402 

Jesuitism    50 

Jesuits    232 

Joannes  de  Tornamira    212 

John  XXII.  121 ;  and  education  143,  207,  223 

John  of  Vigo    214 

John  of  Chartres    227 

Jordan,  David  Starr    390 

Jordan,  Pres.    395 

Joubert    197 

Julius  II.    214 


Kelly,  Dr.  Howard    239 
Ken,  Bishop    359 
Kepler    385 
Kircher    18,  238 
Knights  Hospitalers    261 
Knowledge,  advance    306 
Kopp    131 
Kropotkin    180,  332 
Kuhns,  Prof.  L.  Oscar    347 


Lachrimal  fistula    208 
Laennec    403 
Lanfranc    68,  79,  173.  175 
Lane  lectures    237 
Lancisi    241 
La  Place    405 
Lapponi,  Dr.    214 


Macaulay    284 
Magnet  in  surgery    178 
Mail  and  Express    266 
Maison  Dieu    260 
Malpighi    18,  85,  96,  119,  217,  240 
Malgaigne    182,  194 
Malingerers    273 
Mantegna    112 
Manipulations,  surgical    185 
Marguerite  of  Burgogne    266 
Marie  of  Burgundy    109 
Mary,  Queen    94 


Massari    246 

Maximilian  I.    109 

Medical  Library  and  Hist.  Journal    40,  121 

Medical  Schools  of  Rome    222 

Medieval  scientific  books    23 

Mental  and  nervous  diseases    363 

Method,  deductive  281 ;    inductive  283 

Meyer,  Ernest  von    132 

Meyer    209 

Michel  Angelo    90 

Milan's  magnificent  hospital    269 

Minerals    135 

Mineralogy    140,  157 

Miracles  to  medicine   167 ;     belief  in     199 

Mitchell    405 

Mivart,  St.  George    394 

Mondino    37 

Monte  Cassino    205,  225 

Montpelier,  University  of    79,  177,  182,  192 

Montagnano    78 

Morgagni     99,    219;     forerunner   of    83; 

eighth  daughter  of  222 ;    son  a  Jesuit 

221 

Morgan,  Augustus  de,  on  Galileo    16 
Morley,  Henry    291 
Miinchen    251 


INDEX 


429 


N 

Naples    825 

Nature,  interest  in  335 ;  laws  of  387 

Natural  phenomena  340 ;  science  340 

Naude  205 

Neckam,  Abbot    308 

Necropsies    85 

Newark    188 

Newman,  Cardinal,  on  Galileo    16 

Newton    306 

Nicaise    182 

Nicholas,  Pope  137 ;  IV.  208 ;  V.  213 

Nothingness    313 

Novelty    392 

Novum  Organum    284,  293 

Nuremberg    332 


Observation,  powers  of    300 

Ohm    282,  408 

Open  door    367.  371,  374 

Opposition,  ecclesiastical  62 ;  popular  62 

Opposition  to  the  progress  of  science  396 

Opus  Tertium  134,  288  ;  Majus  292 

Ordures    183 

Ovid    358 

Oxford    324 


Pious  Schools,  Society  of    218 
Pius  IV.    235 
Poggendorf    286 
Poissin    405 
Polypus    85 
Pope  Clement    327 

Popes  encouraged  anatomy  and  medical 
sciences    113 

(For  separate  Popes  see  names) 
Pope  John  and  education    141 
Popularizers  in  science    283 
Possessed    368 
Possession    380 
Potamian,  Brother    307 
Practice  of  medicine    65 
Prayer  for  mental  diseases    376 
Prerequisite  for  degree    159 
President,  our    143 
Priestley    286 
Prince  Kropotkin    330,  345 
Prime  matter    311 
Prospectus  of  Medical  School    157 
Protestant  tradition    24 
Ptolemaic    353 
Psalms    178 

Psychopathic  wards    368 
Public  buildings    269 
Puccinotti    69,  75 

Puschmann    41,  58,  75,  171,  298,  319 
Pythagoras    351 


Padua    77,  83,  106;    University  at    394 

Pagel    171,  177,  190,  319 

Palmist    129 

Papal  Medical  School    26,   66,  89,  119,  222 

Papal  bulls   26;    Curia   113;     Physicians 

118,  202 

Paracelsus    118,  137. 
Pare    174 

Paris    152,  158,  192,  317,  325 
Pasteur    289,  409 
Pathology,  father  of    84 
Patron  of  students    331 
Patients  scourged    375 
Paul  III.   113,  232 ;    IV.  113,  114 
Peregrinus    307 
Permissions  to  dissect    51 
Perugia  University    149,   156,  161 
Perugino    162,   243 
Petella    207,  229 
Peter  of  Chartres    227 
Peter  of  Spain    207,  208 
Pharmacology     158 
Phenomena,  psychic  381;    occult  381 
Philip  Le  Bel    177 
Philip  II.    217 

Philosopher's  stone    135,  308 
Philosophy  encouraged    22 
Phosphorescence    355 
Phreas,  John    95 
Phthisis    180 

Physicians,  Royal  College  of    93 
Physicians,   thinking    201;     of   educated 

people    203 

Physics,  treatise  on  298 
Physical  geography  317 
Piccolomini  216,  235 

PHcher,  Prof.,  on  Mondino  39,  45,  48,  64,  66 
Pilgrimage  for  insane    875,  376 


Questions,  medical    237 


Rabies,  treatment  for    409 

Ramsay,  Sir  Wm.    310 

Raphael    90,   162 

Rashdall  73;    History  of  Universities  37 

Ratisbon,  Bishop  of    324 

Reason  for  false  tradition    24 

Reed,  Major  Walter    239 

Reformation,  so-called    166,  190 

Reform  of  philosophizing    293 

Regius  professors    193 

Religious  care  for  the  sick    263 

Regulation  of  medical  practice    65 

Renaissance    80 

Renaissance  of  science    91 

Resurrection  of    91 

Richard  the  Englishman    205 

Ricardus  Anglicus    205 

Ricardus  Paresiensis    205 

Richet    383 

Roger    170,  192 

Rome  325;    Roman  University  164 

Rosarium    132 

Rostock,  University  of    155 

Roth    70,  76 

Rovere,  Cardinal  Delia    14 

Ruskin    342 


S 


Saintsbury    303 

Saladin    261 

Salermo  65 ;    history  of  130 


430 


THE    POPES    AND    SCIENCE 


Salicet    173,  221 
Sanitarium    371 
Sapienza    215 
Sarti    67 
Schacht    137 
Scheit    137 

Scholasticism    302,  303 
Scholarship,  profound    299 
School  street  in  Oxford    362 
Science,  Medieval    301,  335 
Science  in  modern  universities  304 ;  chem- 
ical   120 

Scientists  believers    282 
Scientia  Experimentalis    292 
Scirrhus    85 

Segregation,  leprosy    275 
Semmelweiss    407 
Servetus    393,  399,  400 
Shrines    375 
Sicilies,  dissection  in    63 
Siena,  story  of    270 
Sighart    317 
Simon  Januensis    208 
Scotus,  Michael    102 
Sir  Wm.  Crookes    382 
Sister  of  Holy  Ghost    254 
Skeleton  of  felon    104 
Skeletons    105 
Snake,  bite  of    181 
Social  ostracism    127 
Sociology    412 
South  Pole    315 
Speakman,  Eliz.    259 
Speculum  Naturale    334 
Sphericity  of  the  earth    316 
Spirit  interference    385 
Spiritist    129 

Spiritual  manifestations    381 
Spiritual  interference    366 
Spiritual  interference  in  human  life    366 
Spiritual  world    380 
Spondent  pariter    122 
St  Anthony's  fire    272 
St.  Bartholomew's    255 
St.  Catherine  of  Siena    272 
St.  Charles  Seminary    146 
St.C6me    194 
St.  Dympna    376 
St.  Francis    162,  328 
St.  Francis's  fire    276 
St.  Gallen    251 
St.  Thomas's  Hospital    256 
St.  Victor    205 
Stagirite    292 

Stars,  shooting  351 ;    fixed  352 
Steinschneider    209 
Steno    96,  400 
Stensen    % 
Stenosis    85 

Stone,  philosopher's    125 
Strangury    180 
Strasburg    72 
Structural  work    330 
Students  clerics  339;    of  medicine  157 
Sturdy  vagrants    274 
Sudden  Death    242 
Suggestions,  strong    375 
Summa  Theologiae    298 
Super  Illius  specula    128 
Superstition     184 
Superficiality  of  our  education    21 


Surgery,  history  of  68 ;    prohibition  of  169 
Surgery,  father  of  193 ;   prejudice  against 

194 
Surgeons  ecclesiastics  169;    dishonorable 

171 

Surgeons,  Middle  Ages    172 
Swift,  Dean    391 
Syncope    214 
Sylvester  II.    227 
Synonyma  Medicinae    209 
Synonymies    209 


Taxes    185 

Telepathy    384 

Tents    183 

Temporal  power    55 

Tertullian    112 

Thaddeus    206 

Theobald  V.,  King    335 

Theodoric    183 

Theological  discouragement    167 

Theological  opposition    167 

Theophastus    319 

Thirteenth  Greatest  of  Centuries    322 

Thomas  of  Cantimprato    336 

Thrombosis  of  the  mesenteric  vein    85 

Thule    315 

Thomson    132,   135,  405 

Tolerance  for  scientific  investigation    116 

Thomassetti    146 

Tooth,  dead  man's    167,  183 

Toply    58,  67;    von   41 

Tozzi    218,  240 

Traditions,  blood-fearing    192 

Tramp    274 

Transmutation  of  metals    309 

Trephining    185 

Trent,  Council  of    204 

Trithemius    137 

Trowbridge    343 

Tuberculosis,  crusade  against    278 

Turner    86,   115,  245,  304 

Twelve,  College  of,  Physicians    211 

Tycho-Brahe    360 

Tyndall    238 


U 

Ulcers,  carcinomatous    183 

Umbrian  School    162 

University  curriculus,  medieval    801,   308 

University  books  304;    teaching  329 

University,  Papal    15 

University  of  the  City  of  Rome    223 

Urban  VI.    211 


Valentine    136 
Valsalva    99,  194 
VanSwieten    241 
Varolius    217 
Vatican    88 
Vecchetta    271 
Venice    72,  88,  106 
Verocchio    112 
Verona    174 


INDEX 


431 


Vesalius  35,  51,  100;  great-grandfather 
109 ;  inquisitive  101 ;  ancestry  109 ; 
father  110;  as  consultant  112;  life 
of  116,  216 

Vibrations  in  the  ether    384 

Vienna  Medical  School    241 

Villani    345 

Villanova,  Arnold  of    210 

Vincent  of  Beauvais    334 

Virchow    251,  256 

Virgil    407 

Visitor's  fees,  Bedlam    373 

Vitry    308 

W 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russell    386 
Walsh    144 

Wards,  cheerless,  white    268 
Ward  for  psychic  cases    367 
Warfare,  Theology,  Science    29 
Weismann    393 


Wenzel,  Emperor    169 

Whewell    293 

White,  Andrew  D.    29 ;    on  dissection   49 ; 

universal  prohibition    20,  112,  122.  128, 

130,  171,  199,  369 
William  of  Salicet    68,  79 
Workmen  of  Lyons    326 
World,  immaterial    3S« 
Wurz    174 


Young,  Dr.  Thomas    404 
Yperman    178 
Ypres    178 


Zerbi    105 
Zoology    158 
Zurich    251 


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